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JOAQUIN MILLER 

From a Photograph taken previous to 1890 



The Poetical Works 

of 


Joaquin Miller 


Edited with an Introduction and Notes 

by 

Stuart P. Sherman, Ph.D. 

Professor of English in the University of Illinois 


<<K 




G.P.Putnam’s Sons 

IS^ewYork & London 
tElje 'Knickerbocker Press 

X923 



Copyright, 1923 
by 

Abbie Leland Miller 



Made in the United States of America 


PREFACE 


The justification of this edition, undertaken with the ap¬ 
proval of Mrs. Miller, is that for the first time it exhibits the full 
range of Joaquin Miller’s poetical works in a single volume. 
The Bear edition in six volumes, which he had prepared in his 
later years, must be regarded as an interesting but somewhat 
chaotic personal repository rather than as a definitive popular 
edition. Following his text and his general plan, yet with numer¬ 
ous rearrangements and additions, I have reprinted here all the 
poems which he gathered into that storehouse; but in the interests 
of condensation and coherence have omitted his shredded 
memoirs, his four plays in prose, his essays and his sheaf of press 
notices, and have greatly abridged his copious running commen¬ 
tary. In compensation I have added more than fifty poems which 
he discarded or overlooked but which are either of intrinsic merit 
or of value to the student of his development. The whole of the 
rare Portland volume, Joaquin , Et Al., is reprinted from the orig¬ 
inal text, except “Joaquin” and “Benoni,” which Miller had 
revised and incorporated in Songs of the Sierras. The “Fallen 
Leaves” series is restored from the American edition of Songs of the 
Sun-Lands , 1873, except in the case of “Thomas of Tigre,” 
“Yosemite,” and “Dead in the Sierras,” where the text of the 
Bear edition is followed. The other principal additions are the 
series from Shadows of Shasta and from The Building of the City 
Beautiful; and “Light of the Southern Cross,” printed from a 
pamphlet supplied by Mrs. Miller, to whom and to her daughter 
Juanita I am indebted for various information contained in the 
Introduction. 

S. P. S. 


in 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION.. . . i 

WHEN LITTLE SISTER CAME . 41 

FROM JOAQUIN , Et Al., 1869.45 

Is It Worth While? ..47 

Zanara . 48 

In Exile . 49 

To the Bards of S. F. Bay ...... 50 

Merinda .......... 50 

Nepenthe .......... 52 

Under the Oaks ........ 54 

Dirge .......... 54 

Vale.55 

Ultime ..55 

SONGS OF THE SIERRAS, 1871.59 

To Maud .......... 61 

Walker in Nicaragua ....... 61 

The Tale of the Tall Alcalde.88 

The Arizonian ......... 104 

The Last Taschastas.113 

Joaquin Murietta ........ 120 

Bits From Ina, A Drama.126 

Even So 137 

Myrrh .......... 143 

Burns .......... 146 

Byron ..147 

Kit Carson's Ride ........ 149 


v 










VI 


Contents 


PAGE 

FALLEN LEAVES, 1873 . . . . . . .153 

Palm Leaves . ....... 155 

Thomas of Tigre ..155 

Yosemite ..155 

Dead in the Sierras . . . . . . . .156 

In Southern California . 156 

Who Shall Say?.157 

A Love Song.157 

In San Francisco . 158 

Shadows of Shasta . . . . . . . .158 

At Sea.159 

A Memory of Santa Barbara . . . . . .159 

Summer Frosts ......... 160 

Sierras Adios ......... 160 

BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS, 1873.163 

Oye-Agua: Oregon . . . . . , . .165 

Sierra Grande Del Norte ...... 165 

Exodus for Oregon .. 166 

The Heroes of Oregon.168 

Where Rolls the Oregon . . . ^ . .170 

Picture of a Bull . .172 

Vaquero.. . . .172 

The Great Emerald Land . . , . . • 173 

To Rest at Last , 

SONGS OF THE SUN-LANDS. I77 

Isles of the Amazons, . j 7 ^ 

An Indian Summer, . 209 

From Sea to Sea, . . .... , 213 

The Ship in the Desert, . , k , , , , 216 

The Sea of Fire, , . 24s 

A Song of the South, .. 263 

Dawn at San Diego, . ...... 2 g 7 









Contents 


• • 
Vll 


PAGE 

SONGS OF THE HEBREW CHILDREN (OLIVE LEAVES) . 299 


O Boy at Peace.301 

At Bethlehem, .. 3 o 3 

“La Notte” . 3 o 3 

In Palestine.304 

Beyond Jordan,.304 

Faith, . 3 o 5 

Hope, 305 

Charity,.306 

The Last Supper.307 

A Song for Peace.308 

To Russia .^oo 


To Rachel in Russia 


SONGS OF ITALY, 1878 . 

The Ideal and the Real 
A Dove of St. Mark 
Como .... 
Sunrise in Venice 
Vale! America . 

Rome .... 
Attila’s Throne, Torcello 
Venice 

A Hailstorm in Venice 
Santa Maria: Torcello 
In a Gondola 
The Capucin of Rome 


• 311 

• 3i3 

• 323 

• 330 

• 332 

• 333 

• 339 

' 339 

• 34i 

• 342 

• 343 

• 344 

• 345 


FROM SHADOWS OF SHASTA, 1881.347 

Mount Shasta.. * • 349 

A Land That Man Has Newly Trod .... 349 

The Mountains.349 

For the Right.350 












viii Contents; 


PAGE 


0 , the Mockery of Pity „ 

• 

• 


• 


350 

0 Tranquil Moon 

• 

• 


• 


350 

LOG CABIN LINES .... 






35 i 

The Soldier’s Home, Washington 






353 

Olive ...... 






356 

The Battle Flag at Shenandoah 






356 

The Lost Regiment . 






357 

Newport News .... 






359 

The Coming of Spring 






359 

Summer Moons at Mount Vernon 






360 

The Poem by the Potomac 






360 

Washington by the Delaware . 






360 

The Bravest Battle 






361 

THE ULTIMATE WEST . 






363 

To Juanita .... 






365 

California’s Resurrection. 






366 

Pleasant to the Sight 






366 

The Trees ..... 






367 

A Hard Row for Stumps . 






367 

The Gold That Grew by Shasta Town 





368 

The Sioux Chief’s Daughter 






370 

A Shasta Tale of Love 






373 

Love in the Sierras . 






374 

Old Gib at Castle Rocks . 






375 

Comanche ..... 






377 

Montara ..... 






378 

The Larger College 






378 

To the Pioneers 






379 

49 ...... 






380 

San Diego . 






380 

Pioneers to the Great Emerald Land 





381 

Alaska . 

• 





382 











Contents 


IX 


The American Ocean 
Twilight at the Hights 
Arbor Day 

California's Cup of Gold . 
By the Balboa Seas . 
Magnolia Blossoms . 
California’s Christmas 
The Men of Forty-Nine . 
Custer . 

The Heroes of America 
“The Fourth” in Oregon . 
An Answer 


Karnak 


FROM THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL, 1893 
Feed My Sheep . 

Under the Syrian Stars . 

The Growing of a Soul . 

How Beautiful are the Feet 
The Sermon on the Mount 
In the Sweat of Thy Face 
The Christ in Egypt 
Awaiting the Resurrection at 
The Voice of Toil 
The Foundation Stones 
The First Law of God 
Lo! On the Plains of Bethel 
How Shall Man Surely Save His Soul 
Under the Olive Trees 
From Out the Golden Doors of Dawn 
The Sun Lay Molten in the Sea 
He Walked the World With Bended Heai 
The Day Sat by With Banner Furled 
The Toil of God .... 

The Blessed Bees .... 


D 


PAGE 

. 382 

• 383 

• 383 

• 383 

• 384 

• 384 

• 384 

• 385 

. 386 

. 386 

• 387 

• 389 

• 391 

• 393 

• 393 

• 393 

• 394 

• 394 

• 395 

. 395 

• 396 

• 397 

. 397 

• 398 

• 398 

• 399 

. 400 

. 400 

. 401 

. 401 

. 401 

• 403 

. 403 
















x Contents 

Man’s Books .... 

The Truly Brave 
What If We All Lay Dead Below 
Put Up Thy Sword . 

Why, Know You Not Soul Speaks to Sou 
The Voice of the Dove 

ENGLISH THEMES .... 

England . 

St. Paul’s. 

Westminster Abbey . 

Oh, for England’s Old Time Thunder! 

At Lord Byron’s Tomb 
Dead in the Long, Strong Grass 
The Passing of Tennyson . 

Riel, the Rebel 
Mother Egypt .... 

Africa ..... 

Boston to the Boers 


MORE SONGS FROM THE HIGHTS 

The Poet . 

And Oh, the Voices I Have Heard 
The World Is a Better World 
The Fortunate Isles 
To Save a Soul 
The Light of Christ’s Face 
Good Buddha Said “Be Clean, Be Clean 
True Greatness 
On the Firing Line . 

Mothers of Men 
After the Battle 
Our Heroes of To-day 




ft 


PAGE 

403 

404 

404 

405 
405 
405 

407 

409 

409 

410 
410 
410 
412 

412 

413 

413 

414 

415 

4 W 

419 

419 

419 

420 

420 

421 

421 

422 

422 

423 

423 

424 














Contents 


XI 


PAGE 

A Dead Carpenter ........ 425 

Question?.425 

Don’t Stop at the Station Despair.426 

For Those Who Fail.426 

The River of Rest.427 

Death Is Delightful ....... 427 

The Song of the Silence ....... 428 

Tomorrow.428 

Finale.428 

MISCELLANEOUS LINES.431 

The Missouri ......... 433 

Down the Mississippi at Night ..... 433 

By the Lower Mississippi ....... 434 

Her Picture ......... 434 

Christmas by the Great River ..... 435 

He Loves and Rides Away ...... 435 

The Queen of My Dreams ...... 437 

Those Perilous Spanish Eyes ...... 438 

Montgomery at Quebec ..439 

The Defence of the Alamo ...... 439 

A Nubian Face on the Nile ..440 

Peter Cooper ......... 440 

The Dead Millionaire ....... 440 

Garfield . . 441 

To Andrew Carnegie.441 

Lincoln Park . 442 

v'Resurgo San Francisco ....... 442 

Cuba Libre ......... 444 

The Dead Czar ..445 

The Little Brown Man.446 

Chilkoot Pass.447 

The Fourth in Hawaiian Waters.447 

Light of the Southern Cross ...... 448 












xn 


Contents 


PAGE 


SEMI-HUMOROUS SONGS . 

In Classic Shades 
That Gentle Man From Boston 
William Brown of Oregon 
Horace Greeley’s Drive . 

That Faithful Wife of Idaho 
Saratoga and the Psalmist 
A Turkey Hunt in Texas . 

USLAND .... 

That Ussian of Usland 
Says Plato 
Welcome to the Great American Oc 
Two Wise Old Men of Omar’s Land 

SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SEAS 

Columbus .... 

A Song of Creation . 

With Love to You and Yours 
Adios .... 


NOTES 


INDEX OF FIRST LINES . 


EAN 


• • 


• • 


* » 


453 

455 

456 
458 
460 

462 

463 

464 
466 

466 

467 

468 

469 

473 

475 

476 

540 

564 

567 

581 

585 


INDEX OF TITLES 











INTRODUCTION 





INTRODUCTION 

Joaquin Miller was a picturesque figure on the American 
scene for more than forty years. The romantic life which he had 
conceived and which he had, in considerable measure, enacted, 
he recorded in both verse and prose, with due regard for the at¬ 
tention of posterity. Though much of his poetry is a genuine 
conquest, he wrote too easily and he wrote too much. In the 
summer of 1921, only eight years after his death, though occa¬ 
sional curious pilgrims visited his home on The Hights above 
San Francisco Bay, and carried off a stone from his monument 
to Moses The Law-Giver, booksellers of a dozen shops in the 
cities that fringe the bay looked up with surprise when one en¬ 
quired for a copy of his works, and replied that they had none. 
It is not strange that popular interest refuses to float a six-volume 
edition of Miller. But our literature is not so rich in distinctive 
national types that we can afford to let this poetical pioneer 
fade, as he is now in danger of fading, into a colorless shadow like 
the once famous scouts who accompanied Fremont into the West. 

He is, to be sure, difficult to fix for an adequate portrait, be¬ 
cause in his time he played several parts; and he himself was never 
quite sure in which of his various costumes and poses he would 
most adorn the national gallery. An emigrant from the Middle 
Border, a gold-hunter of the Far West, an Indian fighter, a fron¬ 
tier judge, he first rose above the horizon, in 1871, with assist¬ 
ance and cheers from England, as the long-haired top-booted 
‘ ‘ poet of the Sierras.’ 5 Even at the outset of his career, he was not 
quite satisfied with that role. His own early aspiration was rather 
to be known as “the American Byron”; and, in keeping with that 


3 


4 


Sntrobuction 


high calling, he shook off the dust of his native land, wandered 
for a time in “exile,” and bore through Italy and the Mge&n 
Isles the pageant of his bleeding heart. Following his personal 
contact with the Pre-Raphaelites in London, this impressionable 
mountaineer discipled himself for a brief period in the early 
’seventiesto Swinburne and the Rossettis, was intensely “aesthe¬ 
tic,” and contemplated devoting himself to the Orient. Return¬ 
ing to America about 1875, he made through his middle years 
numerous ventures in prose fiction and drama, ranging all the 
way from the Forty-Niners and the Indians of the Pacific slope 
to fast life in New York and to the more or less autobiographical 
affairs of the artist Alphonso Murietta in Italy (The One Fair 
Woman ). In what we may call his final period, after his return to 
California in the middle ’eighties, there grew strong in him a sense 
that he was the leader of a native poetical movement, a spiritual 
seer with Messianic or at least prophetic mission; and in the flow¬ 
ing hair and beard of his last years, stalking majestically under 
the trees which he had planted by his monuments on The Hights, 
and gazing dreamily out over the Pacific, he looked the part. 

Now, whatever one may think of Miller’s actual contribution 
to poetry or to prose fiction, this evolution of an Indian fighter 
into the Moses of the Golden Gate is an extraordinary phe¬ 
nomenon. Considered merely as a detached individual, he 
is abundantly interesting to the biographer. But he repays 
sympathetic curiosity most generously perhaps when one re¬ 
gards and studies him as a register of the power exerted 
upon the individual by the American environment and the na¬ 
tional culture, even at their thinnest and crudest. To study him 
in this fashion the first requisite is a more coherent account of his 
career than has been hitherto available. Joaquin Miller was his 
own principal hero, but by a singular fatality his adventures have 
never been adequately written. Certain scenes and events he 
himself sketched repeatedly; but concerning many passages of his 
history he was extremely reticent. What is more serious, he had 


Sntrobuctton 


5 


no steady narrative power. Lifelong an adventurous rover, in 
love with action, he finds it next to impossible to stick to the 
thread of his story. As soon as he grasps the pen, he overflows 
with sentiment and moralization and he riots in description. 
Consequently his longer poems frequently produce the effect of 
panorama; and the feeling which they present remains obscure 
till the shifting pictures are connected and explained by the 
events of his own life. 

To the student of American culture, the case of Joaquin 
Miller is the more valuable from the fact that he did not—like 
Bret Harte, for example—put on the frontier as a literary gar¬ 
ment, after an eastern upbringing. By birth and ancestry he 
belonged in the great migration which settled the Middle Border 
and the Far West. He was born in 1841, in a covered wagon, 
“at or about the time it crossed the line dividing Indiana from 
Ohio.” His mother, Margaret Witt of Dutch stock from North 
Carolina, and his father, Hulings Miller of Scotch stock from 
Kentucky, were married in Indiana; and after some oscillation 
between Indiana and Ohio, gravitated slowly westward for a 
decade through the Miami Reservation and up along the banks 
of the Wabash and the Tippecanoe rivers, before they heard a 
clear call to follow the overland trail to the coast. Meanwhile 
they made various cabin homes for their young family. The 
mother cooked and sewed and wove and spun. The father worked 
his little clearings, failed as storekeeper, served as magistrate, 
and kept school for the children of the wilderness. It was a 
rough life, but every reference of Miller to his childhood indicates 
that it was in many respects a good and a happy life; and every 
reference to his parents is marked by a tenderness without con¬ 
descension. These simple people were impecunious, restless, 
and not very shrewd—rather sentimental and visionary. But 
they were honest and pious, with the pacificism of the Quaker 
discipline and the abolitionism of Horace Greeley; they were loyal 
to one another and gentle and affectionate in all the family re- 


6 


Jfntrotmction 


lationships; they were kindly in their intercourse with the In¬ 
dians of the Reservation; and they were hospitable with their 
meagre shelter to wanderers less fortunately circumstanced. 
Most of the parents’ traits ultimately reappeared in the son, from 
their hospitality to their turn for roving. 

The migratory influences from his immediate family were 
reenforced by the spirit of the age. The Millers were not alone 
in finding it difficult to “settle down” in the eighteen-forties. 
It was an expansive and exploratory epoch in both the physical 
and the intellectual senses. The East was in a philosophical and 
social ferment. Descendants of the Puritans, corporally resident 
in Concord, were extending their mental frontiers to Greece and 
India; and in 1841 Emerson published the first series of his Essays, 
“striking up” for a new world. It is not clear that these expan¬ 
sive utterances promptly reached the Indiana settlement. But 
between 1842 and 1844 Fremont started a movement which was 
the material complement of Transcendentalism by his series of 
bold expeditions to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon, and Cali¬ 
fornia. Fremont’s account of these explorations Hulings Miller 
borrowed from an Indian agent and read in the evenings to his 
assembled family. “ I was never so fascinated,” says Joaquin, “ I 
never grew so fast in my life. Every scene and circumstance in 
the narrative was painted in my mind to last, and to last forever.” 
The hide of the “woolly white horse” celebrated in Fremont’s 
presidential campaign is exhibited to this day in Miller’s home in 
California; and it may be mentioned here that Fremont’s guide, 
the hunter and Indian fighter Kit Carson, is the hero of one of 
Miller’s most readable poems. In 1845 Texas was admitted to. 
the Union, and Sam Houston, another of the poet’s western he¬ 
roes, was elected to the United States Senate. At about this time 
the Mormons, whom he was to commemorate in The Danites, 
were drifting westward through Illinois and Missouri; and in 
1847 Brigham Young led the faithful into the valley of the Great 
Salt Lake. In 1849 the cry, “Gold is discovered in California,” 


introduction 


7 


ran like prairie fire among our middle-borderers, and doubled 
the attraction of the full section of land offered to each settler in 
Oregon, in a bill introduced by Senator Linn of Missouri. By 
1850 still another of Miller’s heroes, the enigmatic William 
Walker, was in California, soon to be preparing his filibustering 
excursions into Mexico and Nicaragua. To add the last attrac¬ 
tion General Joe Lane, once a pupil of Hulings Miller, in the 
sugar camps of Indiana, had been appointed governor of 
Oregon. 

The multiplied appeals of the Far West had become irresist¬ 
ible. As soon as they could equip themselves for the journey, 
three years after the discovery of gold, the Millers started fo: the 
promised land. With a presentiment on his father’s part that it 
would some day be a pleasure to go over the record, Joaquin, 
then in his eleventh year, kept a journal of -he great expedition. 
Though this unfortunately was lost, the poetic residuum of his 
impressions is preserved in “ Exodus for Oregon” and “The Ship 
in the Desert.” As he recalled their adventure many years later, 
they set out in wagons on the seventeenth of March, 1852; in 
May, they crossed the Missouri above St. Joe, where they found 
the banks for miles crowded with tents of the emigrants; followed 
the Platte River; threaded Fremont’s South Pass over the 
Rockies; rested at Salt Lake City; skirmished with the Indians 
in the desert; descended to the head waters of the Snake River; 
crossed the Cascade Mountains at the Dalles; and, after seven 
months and five days, ended their march of three thousand miles 
in Oregon, near the middle of the Willamette Valley, “the most 
poetic, gorgeous and glorious valley in flowers and snow-covered 
mountains on the globe.” Miller’s enthusiasm for the scenery of 
Oregon is only equalled by his enthusiasm for the new settlers: 
“The vast multitude,” he declares, that fought their way across 
the plains in the face of cholera, hostile Indians, famine, and drouth 
“was, as a rule, religious, and buried their dead with hymns and 
prayers, all along the dreary half year’s journey on which no 




8 


Sntrobuction 


coward ever ventured, and where the weak fell by the wayside, 
leaving a natural selection of good and great people, both in 
soul and body.” 

It was about two years after the establishment of the Millers 
in Oregon that Joaquin’s independent adventures began. They 
had cultivated a little land, bought a few cows and sheep and 
hens, and were running a tavern in a small way. The father and 
elder brother were now absent, teaching school, and Joaquin and 
his younger brother Jimmy were left with their mother to look 
after the place. Stories brought up from the mining camps of 
California by pedlars and itinerant preachers had for some time 
been making him restless; and it had been conceded, he says, 
that he was ultimately to be allowed to seek his fortune in the 
wicked and dangerous territory to the southward. In his four¬ 
teenth year, anticipating the parental consent, he ran away, and 
joining a party of miners who were opening a placer claim in a 
wooded gulch by the Klamath River, just below the border be¬ 
tween Oregon and California, he offered his services as cook and 
dishwasher. Here began his intimate acquaintance with the 
tougher and more miscellaneous element of the western popula¬ 
tion which was streaming through the Golden Gate—the Austral¬ 
ians, the European adventurers, the Mexicans, the Chinese, and 
wanderers from eastern cities. And here, if his memory is to be 
trusted, he wrote his first song, in celebration of an adjutant 
cook’s marriage to a woman from Australia. 

Joaquin was at this time small for his age, slender, pale, 
frail-looking, with hair of the color of “hammered gold,” reaching 
to his shoulders. The camp diet of bacon and beans did not agree 
with him, and his first mining experience was terminated by a 
serious attack of scurvy. He was nursed back to health in Yreka 
by Dr. Ream and a “kind little Chinaman”; and then was taken 
by a mysterious stranger to ano' her camp for the winter by the 
forks of several little streams which flow into the Klamath River 
from the north of Mt. Shasta. “Here,” he says, “ I laid the scene 


Sntrobuctton 


9 


of ‘The Danites,’ my famous play, but have always been sorry I 
printed it, as it is unfair to the Mormons and the Chinese.” The 
tall stranger with whom he spent the winter is another of Miller’s 
heroes, whom at this period he seems to have regarded with un¬ 
qualified adoration. He figures so largely and mysteriously in 
his work that he requires identification. In the introduction to 
the collected poems he is described merely as “the Prince,” and 
is said to have gone “south,” in the spring of 1855. But in Life 
Among the Modocs , 1873, he is represented as a very handsome 
and romantic professional gambler of great courage and chival¬ 
rous nature who was generally understood to be a prince, but 
who, after fighting with Walker in Nicaragua, acknowledged 
himself to be only plain James Thompson, an American. In 1876, 
Miller dedicated his First Fam'lies of the Sierras as follows: 
“To my old companion in arms, Prince Jamie Tomas, of Leon, 
Nicaragua. ” But that this ‘ ‘ Prince Jamie Tomas’ ’ was the James 
Thompson of Life Among the Modocs and the mysterious stranger 
of the autobiographical sketch is made clear at last by a footnote 
to the poem called “ Thomas of Tigre,” in the fourth volume of 
the Bear edition. 

After the departure of “the Prince,” the most influential 
friend of the strange boyhood days on Mt. Shasta was another 
rather mysterious figure, Joseph De Bloney, whom Miller had 
met in the spring of 1855. In an apparently serious sketch of him, 
included in Memorie And Rime , De Bloney is described as “a 
California John Brown in a small way.” According to this ac¬ 
count, he was of an old and noble Swiss family, and had probably 
crossed the plains with Fremont under an impulse similar to that 
which animated Brigham Young in Utah and Walker in Nicara¬ 
gua—an impulse to found a new state. “His ambition was to 
unite the Indians about the base of Mount Shasta and establish 
a sor,; of Indian republic, the prime and principal object of which 
was to set these Indians entirely apart from the approach of the 
white man, draw an impassable line, in fact, behind which the 



IO 


3Jntrobuctton 


Indian would be ecure in his lands, his simple life, his integrity, 
and his purity. ... It was a hard undertaking at best, peril¬ 
ous, almost as much as a man’s life was worth to befriend an 
Indian in those stormy days on the border, when every gold- 
hunter . . . counted it his privilege, to shoot an Indian on sight. 
An Indian sympathizer was more hated in those days, is still, 
than ever was an abolitionist. . . . De Bloney gradually 
gathered about twenty-five men around him in the mountains, 
took up homes, situated his men around him, planted, dug gold, 
did what he could to civilize the people and subdue the savages. 
. . . But he had tough elements to deal with. The most sav¬ 
age men were the white men. The Indians, the friendly ones, were 
the tamest of his people. These white men would come and go; 
now they would marry the Indian women and now join a pros¬ 
pecting party and disappear for months, even years. At one 
time they nearly all went off to join Walker in Nicaragua.” 

Under the influence of this odd character, young Joaquin seems 
for the time to have forgotten the Oregon homestead, and to have 
embraced the dream of a little Indian republic on Mt. Shasta. 
Between 1855 and 1859 he represents himself as living in the 
shadow of the mountains with De Bloney and the Indians and 
“Indian Joe,” a scout and horsetrader of German birth, who had 
been with Fremont, and who furnished Miller some of the materials 
for his poems. He was also on intimate terms with the Indian 
chief Blackbeard, who, he remarks in Memorie And Rime , had 
“a very beautiful daughter,” and gave him a “beautiful little 
valley,” where he built a cabin, and “first began to write.” 
According to Life Among the Modocs, a romance with a biographi¬ 
cal core, he married the chief’s daughter and became eventuallv 
the leader in the movement to unite the tribes in an Indian re¬ 
public. These stories of his Indian bride and of his fighting de¬ 
fiance of the white men seem rather more plausible when one 
forgets that he was but fourteen when he remarked the beauty 
of the girl and only seventeen when he assumed the responsibilities 


Jfntrobuctton 


ii 


for which, according to Memorie And Rime, De Bloney’s growing 
inebriety disqualified him. 

Viewed from within by a romantic poet, this colony of ad¬ 
venturers and Indians was a noble enterprise for the preservation 
of an oppressed race; viewed from without it probably seemed 
more like a nest of horse-thieves. Its importance for Miller was 
partly in its development of his romantic sympathy with the 
outlaw. In a paper on “How I Came to be a Writer of Books,” 
contributed to Lippincotts in 1886, he illustrates this point, and, 
at the same time, explains the origin of his pen-name “Joaquin.” 
His parents had called him Cincinnatus Heine (or Hiner); but, 
during his sojourn on Mt. Shasta, his friends had already begun 
to call him by his now familiar name. According to this account, 
he had made several trips with Mexican horse and mule drivers 
down into Arizona and northern Mexico, and on these expedi¬ 
tions, “These Mexicans were most kind to me.” They, on the 
contrary, were treated by the Anglo-Saxon conquerors of Cali¬ 
fornia wi:h a brutality which was “monstrous.” “It was this,” 
says Miller “that had driven Joaquin Murietta, while yet a 
youth, to become the most terrible and bloody outlaw our land 
has ever known. A reward of many thousands had been offered 
for hi i head, he had been captured, killed, and his head was in 
spirits and on exhibition in San Francisco, when I took up my pen 
for the first time and wrote a public letter in defence of the Mexi¬ 
cans.” In consequence of this letter he was bante ingly identified 
by a Sacramento paper with ihe bandit. His friends continued 
the banter. The name was revived when he returned to Oregon, 
and was employed to twit him when he became an editor. And 
so he finally accepted it and used it in the title of his first 
book. 

In the chapter of his relations with the Indians there are mani¬ 
fold obscurr ies and contradictions. He adhered pretty consist¬ 
ently throughout his life to the assertion that he was in three 
Indian battles or campaigns, the Battle of Castle Rocks, the 



12 


Jfntrobuctton 


“ Pitt River War,” and a later campaign in Oregon. But according 
to one set of stories he figures as a renegade fighting with the 
Indians against the whites; while according to the other set of 
stories he is fighting with the whites against the Indians. The 
chief prose sources of the renegade story are Life Among the 
Modocs and Memorie And Rime; but he still calls himself a 
‘ ‘ renegade’ ’ in the introduction to the Bear edition. On the other 
hand, there is in existence among the papers preserved by the 
Miller family a petition for damages, never presented, in which 
Miller represents himself as the victim of Indian depredations; 
and in his annotations of the poem “Old Gib At Castle Rocks” 
he establishes by a sworn affidavit that this first battle was 
against the “Modocs and Other Renegades,” and that his wound 
in the head was received while he was fighting at Judge Gibson’s 
side. In Memorie And Rime , however, he declares that the battle 
of Castle Rocks was fought under the leadership of De Bloney, 
to punish unfriendly Indians for burning his camp. But in the 
introduction to the Bear edition, he says nothing of De Bloney; 
the leader of Miller’s party is there represented as Mountain Joe, 
who in the battle unites forces with Judge Gibson, the alcalde of 
the district. 

The discrepancies in his various accounts may be explained in 
three ways. First, Miller did in his poems and prose narratives 
deliberately adulterate his facts with imaginary elements in the 
interest of romance, and like his early model Lord Byron, he 
enjoyed and encouraged identification of himself with all his 
hard-riding, hard-fighting, and amorous heroes. Secondly, he 
tells us that as a result of his arrow wound in the head and neck 
at the Battle of Castle Rocks, “on the 15th day of June, 1855,” 
he lost his memory for months, was “nearly a year” in recovering, 
and was somewhat feeble minded for sometime after. Thirdly, 
if he ever actually became a renegade and participated in outlaw 
raids, when he returned to “civilization” he indulged in wise 
“lapses of memory.” 


Stitrobuctton 


i3 


With a consciousness, then, that we are treading the uncertain 
border between fact and fiction, we pull the arrow from Joaquin’s 
neck in the summer of 1855, and commit him to the care of an 
Indian woman, who treats him as her son. Late in the fah, re¬ 
stored at last to his senses and beginning to recover his strength, 
he teaches school in a mining camp near Shasta City at night and 
tries to mine by day—rather strenuous activities for a feeble¬ 
minded convalescent! But in the following spring, 1856, he again 
joins the red men on the mountain. “When the Modocs rose up 
one night and massacred eighteen men, every man in Pitt River 
Valley, I alone was spared”;—thus runs the introduction to the 
Bear edition—“and spared only because I was Los bobo , the fool. 
Then more battles and two more wounds. My mind was as the 
mind of a child and my memory is uncertain here.” But accord¬ 
ing to Memorie And Rime , news of the Pitt River massacre came 
to Joaquin in the spring of 1857, when he was encamped on the 
spurs of Mt. Shasta, “ sixty miles distant"; so that it must have 
been in a later stage of the * 1 war ’ ’ that he got his ‘ ‘ bullet through 
the right arm.” Had he complicity in the massacre? He raises 
the question. He says that he knew in advance that it had been 
planned, and he sympathized with its perpetrators years later. 
Following it, he made an expedition to Shasta City for ammuni¬ 
tion to arm De Bloney’s Indians “against the brutal and aggres¬ 
sive white men”; had a horse shot under him by the pursuing 
whites, stole another horse, was overtaken, threatened with 
hanging, lodged in Shasta City jail, “and my part in the wild 
attempt to found an Indian republic was rewarded with a prompt 
indictment for stealing horses.” This, he says, was in 1859. 
After long confinement, he was delivered from jail by the Indians 
on the night of the 4th of July, thrown upon a horse, “and such 
a ride for freedom and fresh air was never seen before.” (See 
Memorie And Rime , pp. 234-235, Life Among the Modocs , chap, 
xxx, and The Tale of the Tall Alcalde.) 

Miller hints, in Memorie And Rime, at one more disastrous 



14 


Sntrobuctton 


attempt to carry out De Bloney’s plan for the republic, followed 
by separation from his leader, and flight to Washington Territory. 
But in the introduction to the Bear edition, he interposes at this 
point in his career, though without dates and vaguely and briefly, 
his connection with the filibuster William Walker. “I, being a 
renegade,” he says, “descended to San Francisco and set sail for 
Boston, but stopped at Nicaragua with Walker.” 

In his poem “With Walker in Nicaragua,” he represents him¬ 
self as riding side by side with the filibuster in his campaigns and 
as treated by him like a son; and he always encouraged the com¬ 
mon belief that this poem had a substantial autobiographical core. 
There is a good deal of evidence for concluding that it had none. 
Walker sailed from San Francisco in May and landed in Nica¬ 
ragua on June 16, 1855. On the previous day, Miller was 
wounded at Castle Rocks in northern California. In May, 
1857, Walker left Nicaragua and was a paroled prisoner in the 
United States till August, i860, when he landed in Honduras, 
where he was executed on the 12th of September in the same year. 
Miller later associated himself with his hero by publishing the 
last words of Walker, obtained from the priest who attended the 
execution; but Miller says in his notes on the poem in the Bear 
edition: “I was not with him on this last expedition.” Of course 
the intended implication is that he was with Walker on a pre¬ 
vious expedition. Recruits from California sailed down to join the 
filibuster at frequent intervals, it is true; but, if any credit is to be 
given'to Miller’s Indian stories, he was recovering from his Castle 
Rocks wound from June, 1855, till the spring of 1856, when he 
joined the red men on the mountains; he spends the winter on the 
spurs of Mt. Shasta, and in the spring of 1857 he becomes impli¬ 
cated in the Pitt River Valley War, in which he is again seriously 
wounded; and his connections with this affair are not terminated 
till 1859. He might then have set out in time to join Walker’s 
fatal expedition in Honduras; but he tells us that he did not. 
Walker, in his account of The War in Nicaragua , published in 


Ilntrotmction 


15 


i860, nowhere mentions the boy whom he is alleged to have 
fathered. One’s final impression is that the poem is pure fiction, 
colored by the tales and published narratives of the filibusters 
and perhaps by Miller’s subsequent acquaintance with Central 
America. And this impression is strengthened by Miller’s reply 
to one who asked him point blank whether he was ever with 
Walker in Nicaragua: “Was Milton ever in Hell?” 1 

The fiasco of De Bloney’s and Joaquin’s Mt. Shasta “repub¬ 
lic” fell, according to the legend, in the year of John Brown’s 
raid at Harper’s Ferry, and two years after the ejection of Walker 
from Nicaragua. In Miller’s mind these three curious attempts 
to escape from the jurisdiction of the United States became closely 
associated memories of forlorn hopes, with a singular appeal to 
his imagination. Writing at Harper’s Ferry in 1883 (Memorie 
And Rime , 228 ff.), he gives this account of his movements and 
sentiments following his alleged connection with Walker and De 
Bloney: “I made my way to Washington Territory, sold my 
pistols, and settled down on the banks of the Columbia, near 
Lewis River, and taught school. And here it was that the story 
of John Brown, his raid, his fight, his capture, and his execution, 
all came to me. Do you wonder that my heart went out to him 
and remained with him? I, too, had been in jail. Death and 
disgrace were on my track, and might find me any day hiding 
there under the trees in the hearts of the happy children. And so, 
sympathizing, ! told these children over and over again the story 
of old John Brown there.” 

From i860 to 1870 Miller was chiefly an Oregonian, though 
he made many excursions from his base. We shall have to notice 
one more interesting inconsistency which casts a suspicion over 
his account of his life with the Indians. In the introduction to 
the Bear edition, he says in his baffling summary fashion, without 
dates, that on his return from being “with Walker,” he “went 
home, went to college some, taught school some, studied law at 
1 This reply was related to me by Mrs. Miller. 


i6 


Sntroiiuctton 


home some.” Now, in a note to the Bear edition (vol. n., p. 185) 
he speaks of teaching school in 1858 below Fort Vancouver, “ dur¬ 
ing vacation at Columbia College, the forerunner of the Oregon 
University”; and, in another note (vol. 1, p. 170), he says that he 
wrote, “the valedictory class poem” for Columbia College in 
1859. It thus appears that his attendance at “Columbia College” 
falls in the period when, according to his other stories, he was 
engaged in his last desperate efforts to establish De Bloney’s 
“ Mt. Shasta republic”; and his valedictory poem was apparently 
delivered in the year in which he fled from Californian justice to 
hide in Washington Territory. 

If one thinks of Miller as having taken a regular college course 
ending in 1859, then one must be prepared to dismiss most of the 
Mt. Shasta stories as mythical; and doubtless there is a large 
element of fiction in them. They are not, however, quite so in¬ 
consistent with the “college” course as at first sight they appear. 
Eugene City, in which the “college” was located, was not settled 
till 1854; and the institution, with its “pleasant campus,” in 
which the poem was perhaps delivered five years later was noth¬ 
ing more than a small town high school or seminary. And Miller, 
returning from California in 1858, or even as late as 1859^ might, 
after very brief instruction, have appeared as class poet in 1859. 
It is, moreover, unfortunately necessary to regard the statements 
about his own life made towards the close of his literary career 
with almost as much skepticism as those which he made near its 
outset; and for an interesting reason. In his last period as the 
seer on The Hights, Miller desired to be regarded as an authorita¬ 
tive man of letters; consequently he minimized his frontier up¬ 
bringing and magnified his education and general culture. Fur¬ 
thermore, he ultimately desired to be regarded as devoutly 
American and intensely pacifistic; consequently he touched very 
lightly in later years the period when he was a secessionist, he 
skilfully hinted here and there that the stories of his outlawry 
were mythical, and he worked over his poems, making great ex- 












3fntrotiuctton 


i7 


cisions and adding new passages, with the purpose of harmonizing 
them with his declaration that he would rather starve than be 
celebrated as the poetic glorifier of war. 1 This was obviously a 
difficult task in the case of the bloody and imperialistic career 
of Walker. 

In the summer of 1861 Miller began other interesting adven¬ 
tures which are better attested. At this time he was riding Moss- 
man and Miller’s pony express; carrying letters and gold dust 
between Walla Walla, Washington, and the newly opened mines 
at Millersburg in Idaho. Attracted by certain contributions of 
“Minnie Myrtle” appearing in the newspapers of his pack, he 
wrote to her and had replies. His mining ventures yielded him 
enough to enable him to build a “beautiful new home” for his 
parents, and also to buy a newspaper. In 1863 he began to edit 
The Democratic Register in Eugene, Oregon, and he avowed south¬ 
ern sympathies which aroused the community. Though he had 
been brought up an ardent abolitionist and his elder brother John 
had entered the northern army, he himself had imbibed, in his 
“college,” which was tainted with disloyalty, or from the friends 
of Walker, who was a pro-slavery man, or elsewhere—principles 
and sentiments obnoxious to the aroused Unionist spirit of Oregon. 
As he explained it in Memorie And Rime , “when the war came, 

1 “ ‘ The Tale of the Alcalde,”’ he says in his note in the Bear edition, “has 
been a fat source of feeding for grimly humorous and sensational writers, who 
long ago claimed to have found in it the story of my early life; and strangely 
enough I^was glad when they did so, and read their stories with wild delight. 
I don’t know why I alw T ays encouraged this idea of having been an outlaw, but 
I recall that when Trelawny told me that Byron was more ambitious to be 
thought the hero of his wildest poems than even to be King of Greece I could 
not help saying to myself, as Napoleon said to the thunders preceding Water¬ 
loo, ‘We are of accord.’ The only serious trouble about the claim that I made 
the fight of life up the ugly steeps from a hole in an adobe prison-w T all to the 
foothills of Olympus instead of over the pleasant campus of a college is the fact 
that ‘our friends the enemy’ fixed the date at about the same time in which I 
am on record as reading my class poem in another land.” 


i8 


Sntroliuctton 


and the armies went down desolating the South, then with that 
fatality that has always followed me for getting on the wrong side, 
siding with the weak, I forgot my pity for the one in my larger 
pity for the other.” 

His entrance into journalism brought him again to the atten¬ 
tion of his unknown correspondent, “Minnie Myrtle,” who was 
then living in a mining and lumber camp at Port Orford by the 
sea, not far from the southern boundary of Oregon. Twenty 
years later, when this lady died in New York, in May, 1883, 
Miller told in his own fashion the story of his brief unhappy re¬ 
lations with her. Since they made a turning point in his career 
and introduced into his poetry additional “Byronic” notes, let 
us have an abridgment of his own version of the affair as set forth 
in Memorie And Rime. 

“When I came down from the mountains and embarked in 
journalism, she wrote to me, and her letters grew ardent and full 
of affection. Then I mounted my horse and rode hundreds of 
miles through the valleys and over the mountains, till I came to 
the sea, at Port Orford, then a flourishing mining town, and there 
first saw ‘ Minnie Myrtle.’ Tall, dark, and striking in every re¬ 
spect, this first Saxon woman I had ever addressed had it all her 
own way at once. She knew nothing at all of my life, except that 
I was an expressman and country editor. I knew nothing at all 
of hers, but I found her with kind, good parents, surrounded by 
brothers and sisters, and the pet and spoiled child of the mining 
and lumber camp. . . . The heart of the bright and merry girl 
was brimming full of romance, hope, and happiness. I arrived on 
Thursday. On Sunday next we were married! Oh, to what else 
but ruin and regret could such romantic folly lead?” 

“Procuring a horse for her”—for she, too, was an excellent 
and daring rider—“we set out at once to return to my post, far 
away over the mountains.” After a week’s ride, the bridal couple 
reached their intended home in Eugene, “ but only to find that my 
paper had been suppressed by the Government, and we resolved 


Sntrobuctton 


19 


to seek our fortunes in San Francisco. But we found neither 
fortune nor friends in that great city.” In 1863 Mrs. Fremont 
was there, and Charles Warren Stoddard, and Prentice Mulford, 
and Ina Coolbrith. Bret Harte was writing for The Golden Era. 
The nucleus was already formed of the literary group which 
Mark Twain joined in 1864, an d which launched The Californian 
and The Overland Monthly. Whether at this time Miller made 
any attempt to break into the ‘ ‘ western school ’ ’ does not appear. 
If he did so, we can understand his failure. He was still a very 
immature writer, though Stoddard records that he did contribute 
to The Golden Era , “from the backwood depths of his youthful 
obscurity.” But coming as he did in the midst of the Civil War 
to the outskirts of a group animated by Bret Harte, then en¬ 
gaged in writing strongly patriotic verse and prose, the editor of a 
paper which had just been suppressed for disloyalty could hardly 
have expected a very cordial reception. 

One is tempted to conjecture that Miller’s failure to establish 
a literary or journalistic connection in the city may perhaps have 
dashed a little the spirits of his bride. At any rate, he says that 
even while they were living in San Francisco, she had presenti¬ 
ments of “wreck and storm and separation for us.” If thwarted 
aspiration for more literary and social life than she had enjoyed 
in the lumber camp had stimulated these presentiments, they 
must have been strengthened when Joaquin bought a band of 
cattle and journeyed with his wife and baby to a new mining camp 
at Canyon City, in eastern Oregon. As for him, it was the life 
to which he had always been accustomed, and he threw himself 
into the task of establishing himself with unwonted application 
of his restless energy. He practised law among the miners, he 
planted the first orchard in the land, he led in his third Indian 
campaign, he was rewarded in 1866 by election, for a four-year 
term, as judge of the Grant County court, and finally, he had 
begun to occupy himself seriously with poetry. In 1868 he pub¬ 
lished a pamphlet of Specimens, and in 1869, Portland, Oregon, 


20 


Sntrobuctum 


his first book: “ Joaquin , Et Al., By Cincinnatus H. Miller,”— 
dedicated “To Maud.” 1 

Ambition and a multitude of business, as he depicted the 
matter, had made him not the most genial of companions: 

“Often I never left my office till the gray dawn, after a day of 
toil and a night of study. My health gave way and I was indeed 
old and thoughtful. Well, all this, you can see, did not suit the 
merry-hearted and spoiled child of the mines at all. . . . She 
became the spoiled child here that she had been at her father’s, 
and naturally grew impatient at my persistent toil and study. But 
she was good all the time . . . Let me say here, once for all, 
that no man or woman can put a finger on any stain in this 
woman’s whole record of life, so far as truth and purity go. But 
she was not happy here. Impatient of the dull monotony of the 
exhausted mining camp . . . she took her two children and 
returned to her mother, while I sold the little home . . . prom¬ 
ising to follow her, yet full of ambition now to be elected to a place 
on the Supreme Bench of the State .... She had been absent 
from me quite a year, when ... I went to Portland, seeking the 
nomination for the place I desired. But the poor impatient lady, 
impulsive as always and angry that I had kept so long away, had 
forwarded papers from her home, hundreds of miles remote, to 
a lawyer here, praying for a divorce. This so put me to shame 
that I abandoned my plans and resolved to hide my head in Eu¬ 
rope.” 

To “hide” his head was hardly the prime object of Miller’s 
first trip abroad, nor, except by a wide poetic license, can the 
phrase be used to describe his activities there. His object was 
more candidly presented in his Byronic “Ultime,” the last poem 
of the little volume, Joaquin , Et Al ., published in Portland in 
1869— a poem written as if in premonition of death: 

1 The contents were: “Joaquin," “Is It Worth While," “Zanara," “In 
Exile," “To the Bards of S. F. Bay," “Merinda,” “Nepenthe," “Under the 
Oaks," “Dirge," “Vale,” “Benoni," and “Ultime." 


Sntrobuctton 


21 


“ It was my boy-ambition to be read beyond the brine.” 

As soon as Joaquin, EtAl. was published, what Miller burned 
for was a literary recognition impossible on the Oregon frontier. In 
March of 1869, he wrote from Portland to Charles Warren Stod¬ 
dard to solicit his interest in getting the book adequately noticed 
in 7 he Overland Monthly , which had been launched two months 
before. Stoddard was absent in Hawaii; but in January, 1870, 
Bret Harte gave Joaquin a humorous but not unfriendly salute in 
the new magazine: ‘‘We find in ‘Joaquin, et al. ’ the true poetic 
instinct, with a natural felicity of diction and a dramatic vigour 
that are good in performance and yet better in promise. Of 
course, Mr. Miller is not entirely easy in harness, but is given to 
pawing and curvetting; and at such times his neck is generally 
clothed with thunder and the glory of his nostrils is terrible.” 

Following this recognition from the leading literary periodical 
of the Far West, Miller came down from Oregon to embrace the 
bards of San Francisco Bay—so romantically addressed by him 
in Joaquin , Et Al .—came to embrace them and to be embraced 
by them—“clad,” says Stoddard, who had now returned from 
Hawaii, “in a pair of beaded moccasins, a linen ‘duster’ that fell 
nearly to his heels, and a broad-brimmed sombrero .” Fresh, 
breezy, ingenuous, Miller exclaimed at once, “Well, let us go and 
talk with the poets.” Stoddard took him around to call upon 
Bret Harte, and presented him also to the most lyrical third of 
their Trinity, the local Sappho, Ina Coolbrith, who was at once 
impressive and sympathetic. But on the whole, literary glory 
at the Golden Gate was paler than his expectations—“he had 
been somewhat chilled by his reception in the metropolis.” Had 
he really desired to hide his head, he might have accepted Stod¬ 
dard’s invitation to flee away with him to the South Seas. In¬ 
stead of doing so, Miller accepted a wreath of laurel from Ina 
Coolbrith, to lay on the tomb of Byron, and, in midsummer of 
1870, “started for England in search of fame and fortune.” 

One dwells upon his first visit to the old world, because now 


22 


Jfntrobuction 


one sees for the first time adequately manifested the literary 
sensibility and the imaginative yearning which for years had been 
secretly growing in the heart of the judge of Grant County, Ore¬ 
gon. Here is an astounding fact: jottings from a diary, preserved 
in Memorie And Rime , prove that this backwoodsman went 
abroad, not with the jaunty insolence of Mark Twain’s jolly 
Philistines, but rather in the mood of Henry James’s delicately 
nurtured ‘ ‘ passionate pilgrims’ ’ of the decade following the Civil 
War, those sentimental and aesthetically half-starved young 
Americans, who in the middle years of the last century flung 
themselves with tearful joy on England and Europe as the dear 
homeland of their dreams. There is a touch, sometimes more than 
a touch, of the theatrical in his gesture; but there is an unques¬ 
tionable depth of sincere feeling animating the performance as a 
whole. 

There is even a touch of pathos—the more affecting because 
he himself, for once, seems hardly aware of it—in the memoranda 
of his departure from New York. He bought his ticket on August 
io, 1870, “second class, ship Europa, Anchor Line, to land at 
Glasgow; and off to-morrow.” While waiting for the sailing, he 
notes that he has tried in vain to see Horace Greeley and Henry 
Ward Beecher, but has got some leaves from a tree by the door of 
Beecher’s church “to send to mother.” There, in a sentence, was 
his unconscious epitome of what the higher culture of the Amer¬ 
ican metropolis had to offer in 1870 to a passionate pilgrim, to a 
romantic poet: the editorials of a great journalist, the sermons of a 
great preacher—a rebuff from the office of the one, and a leaf 
from a tree of the other. A note of the voyage, which he seems to 
have found very dreary, reminds us that the Franco-Prussian 
War was then in progress: “A lot of Germans going home to fight 
filled the ship; a hard, rough lot, and they ate like hogs.” 

Arrived in Scotland, he turns his back on commercial Glas¬ 
gow, and makes straight for the haunts of Burns. On September 
10, he writes: “God bless these hale and honest Scotch down 


Sntrobuctton 


23 


here at peaceful Ayr. . . . One man showed me more than 
a hundred books, all by Ayrshire poets, and some of them 
splendid! I have not dared to tell any one yet that I too hope to 
publish a book of verse. ... I go every day from here to the 
‘ Auld Brig’ over the Doon, Highland Mary’s grave, and Alloway’s 
auld haunted kirk! . . . Poetry is in the air here. I am work¬ 
ing like a beaver . . . September 18: In the sunset to-day, 
as I walked out for the last time toward the tomb of Highland 
Mary, I met a whole line of splendid Scotch lassies with .sheaves 
of wheat on their heads and sickles on their arms. Their feet 
were bare, their legs were bare to the knees. Their great strong 
arms were shapely as you can conceive; they were tall, and their 
lifted faces were radiant with health and happiness. I stepped 
aside in the narrow road to enjoy the scene and let them pass. 
They were going down the sloping road toward some thatched 
cottages by the sea; I towards the mountains. How beautiful! 
I uncovered my head as I stepped respectfully aside. But giving 
the road to women here seems to be unusual. . . .” Having 
paid his devotions to Burns, his “brother,” he goes on into the 
Scott country, wades the Tweed, and spends a night in Dryburgh 
Abbey. 

Thence he proceeds, with ever more reverential mood, to 
Nottingham, where he lays his western laurel on the tomb of his 
“master,” Byron, and bargains with the care-taker “to keep the 
wreath there as long as he lives (or I have sovereigns). ” “ O my 

poet! ” he cries, “ Worshipped where the world is glorious with the 
fire and the blood of youth! Yet here in your own home—ah 
well!” The parallelism between Byron’s fate and his own, on 
which he broods in Nottingham, stimulates him to fresh poetical 
efforts. On September 28, the record runs: “Have written 
lots of stuff here. I have been happy here. I have worked and 
not thought of the past. But to-morrow I am going down to 
Hull, cross the Channel, and see the French and Germans fight. 
For I have stopped work and begun to look back. ... I see 


24 


Sntroimctton 


the snow-peaks of Oregon all the time when I stop work. . . . 
And then the valley at the bottom of the peaks; the people there; 
the ashes on the hearth; the fire gone out. . . . The old story 
of Orpheus in hell has its awful lesson. I, then, shall go forward 
and never look back any more. Hell, I know, is behind me. 
There cannot be worse than hell before me. ... Yet for all this 
philosophy and this setting the face forward, the heart turns 
back.” 

After a glimpse of the war, he began on November 2, 1870, his 
adventures in London,—which he found delightfully different 
from New York—by walking straight to Westminster Abbey, 
guided only by the spirit in his feet. Later, he continued his 
passionate pilgrimage by looking up the haunts of Washington 
Irving and Bayard Taylor, and he lived for a while in Camber¬ 
well, because Browning had lived there. In February, 1871, he 
was lodged in a garret of the poet Cowley’s house, “right back of 
the Abbey,” looking out on Virginia creepers planted by Queen 
Elizabeth, and listening to the sound of the city’s bells. Re¬ 
freshed from his bath in the stream of poetic tradition and ‘ ‘ at¬ 
mospherically” inspired, Miller made a little book called Pacific 
Poems , containing “ Arazonian” and his drama “Oregonia,” and, 
having printed, at his own expense, a hundred copies, he scoured 
the city seeking a publisher. But the publishers would have none 
of it. Murray, “son of the great Murray, Byron’s friend,” re¬ 
ceived him, indeed, and showed him many pictures of Byron, but 
rejected the proffered opportunity to become Joaquin’s publisher, 
saying, with definitive uplifted finger: “Aye, now, don’t you know 
poetry won’t do? Poetry won’t do, don’t you know?” 

In other quarters he met with better fortune. Knocking at 
the door of Punch, as a nameless American, he was cordially 
received by “my first, firmest friend in London,” a man in whose 
arms Artemus Ward had died,—Tom Hood, son of the famous 
humorist. By March, 1871, he got his Pacific Poems to the re¬ 
views and into a kind of private circulation without a publisher. 


Sntrobuctton 


25 


Almost at once both book and author began to catch the fancy of 
the London literary tasters, who are always hospitably inclined 
to real curiosities from overseas, and welcome a degree of crudity 
in a trans-Atlantic writer as evidence that he is genuinely Amer¬ 
ican. By the end of the month, “ Arazonian” was attributed by 
the Saint James Gazette to Robert Browning; and, notes the diary, 
“Walter Thornbury, Dickens’s dear friend, and a better poet than 
I can hope to be, has hunted me up, and says big things of the 
‘Pacific Poems’ in the London Graphic .” There are, moreover, 
“two splendid enthusiasts from Dublin University.” And, 
finally, Tom Hood has introduced him to the society poet of the 
city, who, in turn, has given him letters “to almost everybody”; 
and so he is socially launched. With this encouragement and 
backing, he attacks the .publishers again, this time successfully. 
By April, 1871, Longmans has brought out his Songs of the 
Sierras , and Miller’s “boy-ambition” is accomplished. 

At one stride he had stepped from backwoods obscurity into 
the full noontide of glory; and it is not strange that the remem¬ 
brance of his English reception dazzled him for the rest of his life. 
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this acclaim was instan¬ 
taneous, enthusiastic, and unanimous—“over generous,” he 
called it, years later, when he published in the Bear edition some 
thirty pages of appreciations from the English press, including 
The Spectator , The Athenaeum , The Saturday Review, The Pall Mall 
Gazette, The Illustrated London News, The Academy, The Evening 
Standard, The Westminster Review, The Dark Blue, The London 
Sunday Times, Chambers's Journal, Frazer's Magazine, The Even¬ 
ing Post, The Globe, The Morning Post, and others. These are 
largely concerned with his first volume, The Songs of the Sierras. 
The reviewers, in general, touch lightly upon his obvious inequali¬ 
ties, blemishes, slips in grammar, and faults in metre; some of 
them apologize slightly for his frontier culture, more recognize it 
boldly as the .source of his power, and proceed to speak in glow¬ 
ing terms of his freshness of theme and treatment, of his tropical 


26 


Sntrobuction 


color, his myth-making power, his fluent, rapid, and melodious 
verse, and “ the supreme independence, the spontaneity, the all- 
pervading passion, the unresting energy, and the prodigal wealth 
of imagery which stamp the poetry before us.” 

They did not hesitate, this chorus of reviewers, to tell him 
that his poetry was the most important that had ever come out of 
America. Nor did they stop with this equivocal praise. The 
Athenceum found him like Browning in his humor and in the 
novelty of his metaphor. The Saturday Review dwelt on his By- 
ronic qualities, and remarked in him ‘ ‘ a ring of genuineness which 
is absent from Byron.” The Westminster Review thought that he 
reminded one of Whitman, with the coarseness left out. And 
The Academy gravely declared, that “there is an impassable gap 
between the alien couleur locale of even so great a poet as Victor 
Hugo in such a work as Les Orientales , and the native recipiency 
of one like our California author, whose very blood and bones are 
related to the things he describes, and from whom a perception 
and a knowledge so extremely unlike our own are no more separ¬ 
able than his eye, and his brain.” 

In the wake of the journalistic ovation, social invitations came 
in upon the poet faster than he could accept or answer them. 
Among those which he had put aside were three letters, signed 
“Dublin.” His Irish friends discovered these and explained that 
they were from the Archbishop (Trench). “ At ‘ Dublin’s’ break¬ 
fast,” says Miller, “I met Robert Browning, Dean Stanley, Lady 
Augusta, a lot more ladies, and a duke or two, and after break¬ 
fast, ‘ Dublin’ read to me—with his five beautiful daughters 
grouped about—from Browning, Arnold, Rossetti, and others, 
till the day was far spent.” The other great feast of the season 
was an all-night dinner with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, at which all 
“the literary brain” of London was present. As he recalled the 
event, with an intoxication of delight, later in the summer: 
“These giants of thought, champions of the beautiful earth, 
passed the secrets of all time and all lands before me like a mighty 



Snttotmction 


27 


panorama. ... If I could remember and write down truly 
and exactly what these men said, I would have the best and the 
greatest book that was ever written.” 

From this rather bewildering contact with the Pre-Raphaelite 
group, Miller departed with a vivid conviction that he, too, was 
above all else, a lover of the beautiful; and he carried away a 
strong impression, which markedly affected his next volume of 
poems, that beauty is resident in “alliteration and soft sounds.” 
Perhaps, however, the most noteworthy utterance which he pre¬ 
served was his own reply to a question of Rossetti’s: 

‘“Now, what do you call poetry?’ and he turned his great 
Italian eyes tenderly to where I sat at his side.” 

‘“To me a poem must be a picture,’ I answered.” 

There was more than a drop of bitterness mingled in the joy of 
his English welcome. With the cup raised to his lips, he wrote in 
his diary, “ I was not permitted to drink.” In the midsummer of 
this most triumphal year, he received news that his sister had died. 
He returned to the United States, only in time to attend the death¬ 
bed of his elder brother in Pennsylvania. Revisiting his parents 
in Oregon, he found his mother in broken health and failing mind. 
Furthermore, the American reception of his poems lacked the 
warmth of the English cordiality. The traditional supercilious¬ 
ness of the East towards the West and a resentful unwillingness 
to have this uncouth frontiers-man accepted abroad as a leading 
or even a significant representative of American letters—these 
not altogether lovely notes are strident in a review in the New 
York Nation in 1871: “It is the ‘ sombreros ’ and ‘ serapes ’ and 
‘ gulches,’ we suppose, and the other Californian and Arizonian 
properties, which have caused our English friends to find in Mr. 
Miller a truly American poet. He is Mr. William Rossetti’s latest 
discovery. We trust, however, that we have no monopoly of ig¬ 
norance and presumption and taste for Byronism. In other 
climes, also, there have been Firmilians, and men need not be 
born in California to have the will in excess of the understand- 


28 


Sntrobuction 


ing and the understanding ill informed. There are people of all 
nationalities whom a pinch more brains and a trifle more of diffi¬ 
dence would not hurt.” 

The chilliness of American literary criticism was not all, nor 
perhaps the worst, that Miller had to face on his return to the 
United States. During his absence in Europe, he had been ac¬ 
cused at home, and not without a basis in fact, of deserting his 
wife. His celebrity as author of Songs of the Sierras gave news¬ 
paper value to the story. And in the fall of 1871, “Minnie 
Myrtle” made the entire subject a topic for editorial comment 
both at home and abroad by corroborating the story and then 
proceeding, in the spirit of magnanimity or of irony or of publicity, 
to justify the poet. Early in 1872, The Saturday Review sum¬ 
marized “Minnie Myrtle’s” communication to the American 
press, and discussed it at length, with elaborate comparison of the 
classical case of Lord Byron. From this discussion the following 
extract will suffice for our purposes: 

“The public, she holds [by her own act belying the conten¬ 
tion], has nothing to do with Mr. Miller except as a poet, and has 
no right to sit in judgment on his conduct as a husband or father; 
and in the next place, poets are different from other people, and 
their lives must be judged, if at all, by a different standard. 
Mr. Miller, we are informed, ‘felt that he was gifted, and his 
mind being of a fine, poetic structure, and his brain very delicately 
organized, the coarse and practical duties of providing for a 
family, and the annoyance of children, conflicted with his dreams 
and literary whims.’ It had been for years his ambition to go to 
Europe and become famous. Time and money were of course 
necessary to his project, and when he wrote to his wife that he 
should be absent for five or six years, and that she must not ex¬ 
pect to hear from him often, she thought it would be better to 
release him at once from domestic obligations. . . . Mrs. 
Miller assures us that she fully sympathized with her husband’s 
projects, and that she believes them to be justified by their prac- 



introduction 


29 


tical results. ‘ Mr. Miller,’ she says, ‘felt that he had gifts of the 
mind, and if his system of economy was rigid and hard to endure, 
it was at least a success; and if he needed all his money to carry 
out his plans, I am satisfied that he thus used it. . . . As we 
are both mortals, it would be affectation in me were I to profess 
to take upon myself all the blame, but I ask to bear my full share. 
. . . Good sometimes comes of evil. . . . Our separation 
and sorrows produced the poems of ‘Myrrh’ and ‘Even So.’” 

It was at about this point in his career that Miller proved the 
adage about a prophet in his own country. 

And now perhaps he did seriously consider hiding his head for 
a time in Europe—hiding it in the Byronic fashion. From early 
in 1872 till 1875 “Childe” Miller wandered extensively, returning 
to Europe with a wide detour by way of South America and the 
Near East. From scattered references one gathers that he made 
acquaintance with the Emperor of Brazil, that he went down the 
Danube and up the Nile, saw Athens and Constantinople, visited 
Palestine, and was ‘‘in and about the tomb of buried empires and 
forgotten kings.” These wanderings, impossible to trace in de¬ 
tail, were interrupted and punctuated by considerable periods of 
steady literary work, by visits to England, by a sojourn in Italy, 
and by publications—all of which can be dated with tolerable 
accuracy. 

Beside the new edition of Songs of the Sierras , he published in 
1873 the first reflection of these travels in Songs of the Sun-Lands. 
Of this, a reviewer in the Athenceum said, “ Mr. Miller’s muse in 
this, its second flight, has taken the same direction as in its first 
essay, but, upon the whole, we think, with a stronger wing.” In 
the prelude to the first long poem in the book, Miller cries with 
fine bravado that “the passionate sun and the resolute sea” have 
been his masters, “and only these.” 1 So far as the prosodical 
qualities of this collection are concerned, this announcement is 

1 This poem, “An Answer," he transferred in his collective edition to the 
end of the series called The Ultimate West. 



30 


Sntrobuctton 


amusing, because nowhere else in his work does he show himself 
so obviously the “sedulous ape” of his English contemporaries. 
The volume is dedicated to the Rossettis; in “ Isles of the Ama¬ 
zons” he is affected by the stanza of “ In Memoriam” and he also 
echoes Mrs. Browning; remembering the Rossetti dinner of 1871, 
he works on the theory that “a poem must be a picture,” and he 
is everywhere studious of “alliteration and soft sounds”; finally 
in the Palestinian sequence called “Olive Leaves,” the influence of 
Swinburne has quite transformed and disguised the sound of his 
voice: 


With incense and myrrh and sweet spices, 

Frankincense and sacredest oil 
In ivory, chased with devices 

Cut quaint and in serpentine coil; 

Heads bared, and held down to the bosom; 

Brows massive with wisdom and bronzed; 

Beards white as the white may in blossom, 

And borne to the breast and beyond,— 

Came the Wise of the East, bending lowly 
On staffs, w r ith their garments girt round 
With girdles of hair, to the Holy 
Child Christ, in their sandals. 

Despite all this mimicry in the manner, the stuff in the Songs 
of the Sun-Lands is, in great measure, Miller’s own. In “ Isles of 
the Amazons ” he considers himself as a scout of the imagination, 
a Kit Carson of poetry, who has carried his banner from Oregon 
and the Sierras to plant it in South American islands by a mighty 
unsung river. His hero, a singing warrior fleeing from strife to 
seek a Utopian peace and felicity, is once more a kind of self¬ 
projection. “From Sea to Sea” is a poetical reminiscence of a 
transcontinental journey by the new Pacific Railway. “By the 
Sun-Down Seas,” which he later cut up into its constituent pic¬ 
tures, sings the glories of Oregon and the emigrants. In “Olive 
Leaves,” his garland from Palestine, he begins a peculiarly Amer- 


introbuction 


3i 


ican reappropriation of Christianity and an assimilation of it to 
his growning humanitarian sentiment. And “Fallen Leaves” 
are for the most part memories of the West. So that if he does not 
exhibit any very daring unconventionalities in form, he does 
employ his forms with a good deal of flexibility in imaginatively 
molding the raw stuff of American experience. 

In 1873, also, Miller published in France and England the 
most original and the most poetical of all his books in prose, and, 
on the whole, perhaps the most interesting book that he ever 
produced, Life Among the Modocs, which circulated in translations, 
later editions, and abridgments, pirated or otherwise, under var¬ 
ious titles—as Unwritten History, Scenes de la vie des mineurs et 
des Indiens de California, Paquita, My Own Story, and My Life 
Among the Indians. In 1872 and 1873 the Modoc Indians were 
attracting the attention of the public by their stubborn resistance 
to the government’s attempt to move them from their old lands 
to a new reservation. In the course of this resistance their killing 
of two peace commissioners naturally excited popular indignation. 
But in Miller, instinctively sympathetic with the underdog, the 
last hopeless stand of this warlike tribe, which he had known in 
his boyhood, appealed strongly to the humanitarian sentiment, 
stirred up old memories, and aroused the imagination. He had, 
as we have seen, in at least one of his “campaigns” fought against 
them; but now as a poet and Utopian he is all on their side, he 
embraces their cause, he speaks from their point of view, he 
makes himself one of them. 

In the introduction to the Bear edition he gives this brief ac¬ 
count of the origin of the book: “Having met the Prince on a visit 
from Nicaragua at the time, he helped me to recall our life among 
the Modocs, adding such romance of his own as he chose.” 
Elsewhere he acknowledges the collaboration of Prentice Mulford. 
How much is due to the influence of these collaborators, one can¬ 
not say; but there is a continuity of narrative and dramatic and 
idyllic interest in the tale, unequalled in Miller’s other prose fic- 









32 


introduction 


tion. The authors enter with genuine enthusiasm into the exhibi¬ 
tion of the white man’s inhumanity, the virtues of the “noble 
savage,” the chivalry of the Prince, the heroic fidelity of Paquita, 
the yellow-haired poetic renegade and his dusky bride, and the 
romantic and melancholy charm of life on the forested slopes of 
Mt. Shasta. There is a wavering thread of autobiographical fact 


running through the romance; but the romance is here far more 
significant than the thread of fact; all that Miller, as a poetic 


dreamer, longed to have been, all that he could not be, inextric¬ 
ably fused with what he was, is here projected, beautifully, by his 
imagination. He so long encouraged the acceptance of the book 
as “history” that perhaps in his later years he actually lost the 
ability, never notable in him, to distinguish what he had done 
from what he had dreamed. In 1874 this book, with the title 
Unwritten History: Life Among the Modocs, was brought out in 
a subscription edition by the American Publishing Company, 
and in the advertising pages of this edition is third in a list begin¬ 
ning with Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age and Josh Billings’s 
Everybody's Friend. 

In Memone And Rime , Miller says that he returned to London 
in November, 1874, from his long wanderings in Europe. Ap¬ 
parently, however, he had returned to England in the preceding 
year, perhaps partly to enjoy the reclame of his two new bobks. 
In 1873, at any rate, he made his acquaintance with that poet 
and patron of the arts and great organizer of literary breakfasts, 
Lord Houghton. In Reid’s Life of Lord Houghton little record re¬ 
mains of this friendship, except a letter of August 5, 1873, ad¬ 
dressed to Gladstone, in which Miller is commended as “most 
interesting as poet and man, I have known and asked nothing 
as to his private life.” Augustus Hare ( The Story of My Life , 
vol. iv) makes a supercilious reference to the poet’s appearance 
at one of these breakfasts: “Joaquin Miller would have been 
thought insufferably vulgar if he had not been a notoriety: as it 
was, every one paid court to him.” But various letters and refer- 


3ntrobuction 


33 


ences in Traubel’s With Walt Whitman in Camden show that Miller 
returned Lord Houghton’s courtesies in America, in 1875, and at¬ 
tempted to bring about a meeting between his English friend 
and Whitman. Furthermore Miller speaks of traveling with 
Lord Houghton in Greece; and in a note of the Bear edition (vol. 
iv., p. 154) he gives interesting hints at the sort of figure that he 
himself made in English country life: 

“Born to the saddle and bred by a chain of events to ride with 
the wind until I met the stolid riders of England, I can now see 
how it was that Anthony Trollope, Lord Houghton and others of 
the saddle and ‘meet’ gave me ready place in their midst. . . . 
In all our hard riding I never had a scratch. One morning Trol¬ 
lope hinted that my immunity was due to my big Spanish saddle, 
which I had brought from Mexico City. I threw my saddle on the 
grass and rode without so much as a blanket. And I rode neck to 
neck; and then left them all behind and nearly every one un¬ 
horsed. Prince Napoleon was of the party that morning; and as 
the gentlemen pulled themselves together on the return he kept 
by my side, and finally proposed a tour through Notts and Sher¬ 
wood Forest on horseback. And so it fell out that we rode to¬ 
gether much.” 

With so much cordiality manifesting itself abroad and so little 
at home, it is not strange that Miller, after this second visit to 
England, should have entertained for a time the notion of fixing 
his residence in a foreign land. It behooved him, furthermore, as 
a faithful follower of Lord Byron, to dwell in Italy. He says, 
with customary indefiniteness as to dates, that, in the footsteps 
of his hero, he “lived long enough at Genoa to find that his life 
there, along with the Shelleys, was simple, sincere, and clean. 
From Genoa I went to Florence, as the guest of our Consul Gen¬ 
eral, Lorimer Graham. I wanted to live with Mr. Graham be¬ 
cause he and his most amiable lady lived in the house occupied 
by Byron and the Shelleys, when they made their home in Flor¬ 
ence. At Venice, under the guidance of Browning, who had left 


3 


34 


Sntrotiuction 


Florence to live in this latter place, after the death of his gifted 
wife, I found only the same story of industry, sobriety and devo¬ 
tion to art.” Charles Warren Stoddard gives a glimpse of Miller’s 
secretive life in Rome, picturing him driving out with the ‘ 1 Pink 
Countess,” and declares that Miller’s Italian novel, The One 
Fair Woman, 1876, with its epigraphs from Byron, Browning, 
Swinburne, and Hay, “embodies” much of Miller’s Roman life, 
and is “one of the truest tales he ever told.” Additional light on 
this period is thrown by Songs of Italy , 1878, a collection mani¬ 
festly produced under the influence of Browning. The Ship in the 
Desert , published in book form in 1875, is preceded by an elo¬ 
quent prose inscription to his parents, dated August, 1874, at 
Lake Como. At about this time Miller bought some land near 
Naples and, in company with an English poet, meditated settling 
there; but malarial fever attacked them both, his friend died, and 
the Italian chapter of his life was ended. 

In November, 1875, Miller dated at Chicago an introductory 
allegorical poem, prefixed to Mary Murdock Mason’s little 
Italian novel Mae Madden, published in 1876. In the course of 
the next decade he roved widely, as was his wont, but this is, in 
general, the period of his experiments at living in eastern cities, 
including Boston, New York, and Washington, where he built 
himself a log cabin, and, in his frontier costume, became the 
picturesque publicity man for the “western school.” Bret Harte 
and Mark Twain, now at the height of their production, were 
creating a lively demand for the tales of the pioneers; and Miller 
perhaps perceived that if he was to have his due profit of the 
popular interest he must renounce his Italian and Oriental in¬ 
clinations and return to his native fields. In 1876, at any rate, 
he published First Families of the Sierras, a prose tale of the 
Forty-Niners, marked by that chivalric sentiment for women and 
by that idealization of the noble men in red shirts, which are dis¬ 
tinctive “notes” of this literary movement. In The Baroness of 
New York, 1877, a long romantic medley in verse, he dismally 


Sntrofcuctton 


35 


failed in his attempt to extend the adventures of his western 
heroine into the society of the metropolis. A presentation copy 
of this book, now in the possession of the University of Chicago, 
bears the author’s own veracious comment that it “isn’t worth a 
damn.” Though he salvaged a portion of it in “The Sea of Fire,” 
the original title disappeared from his collective edition. Soon 
after his return to America, he began to be visited by dramatic 
aspirations; and in 1881 he achieved considerable success with 
The Danites in the Sierras. The three other plays which he pre¬ 
served— Forty-Nine , Tally-Ho , and An Oregon Idyl —are like 
The Danites in presenting incidents in the story of the frontier. 
In 1881, he published also The Shadows of Shasta , a prose tale 
anticipating Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona in indignation at our 
treatment of the Indians. In 1884 falls the interesting but very 
fragmentary autobiographical miscellany called Memorie And 
Rime. With The Destruction of Gotham , 1886, a sensational novel 
of class-conflict in New York City, Miller somewhat significantly 
terminated his search for fortune and glory in the eastern states. 

He had been a sentimental pilgrim in England, a poetic re¬ 
fugee in Italy, and a picturesque visitor—an ambassador from 
the Sierras—even in New York and Washington. Though he had 
enjoyed playing aik + hese parts, perhaps by 1886 he felt that he 
and his pubhc were beginning to lose their zest for one another. 
Furthermore he had now married again and at least entertained 
the thoughi of settling down. The loss of considerable money in 
Wall Street speculations had shaken his faith in “capitalistic 
society” and had weakened the Babylonian attractions of metro¬ 
politan life. He remembered the mountains and the seas of the 
West. He remembered also Sir Walter Scott’s castle and estate 
at Abbotsford as a general model of the fashion in which a great 
poet should live. Mingled with these memories, in the back¬ 
ground of his mind there was a curious accumulation of Utopian 
and Arcadian dreams which from his boyhood he had vaguely 
desired to realize. And so at last the prophet returned to his own 



36 


Sntrolmctton 


country, and entering upon a tract of land upon the hills looking 
over Oakland to San Francisco Bay, he built there a house for his 
wife which he called The Abbey (commemorating at once her 
name and Dry burgh and Newstead Abbeys), a second cottage 
for his old mother, a third “bower” for his daughter, and a little 
guest house for whatever visitor, white, black, or yellow, cared to 
occupy it. There, too, he planted thousands of trees in the shape 
of a gigantic cross, and beneath them on the crest of the hill he 
built for himself a funeral pyre of the rough cobble, and he erected 
three monuments of stone to three heroes: General Fremont, 
Robert Browning, and Moses. 

Miller says that his choice of this retreat on the hills was deter¬ 
mined by the relative cheapness of the land; but he was not a 
practical man, and he must soon have forgotten this practical 
consideration in the more characteristic reflection that The 
Hights was just the right setting for a man like him. His pri¬ 
mary purpose there was not to follow any gainful occupation but to 
live as all poetic Utopians have held that a man should live, toiling 
a couple of hours each day at honest labor of the hands and 
devoting the rest of life to love, friendship, and art. The liter¬ 
ary expression of his dream appears in The Building of the City 
Beautiful , 1893, a Utopian romance obviously related to the 
writings of Ruskin and William Morris but apparently inspired 
directly by Miller’s conversations with a Jewish radical in Pales¬ 
tine. He had it in mind also to gather around him likeminded 
workers and friends, who should give to the world below them an 
illustration of the felicity in store for humanity when the base 
passions which now govern society are eradicated. Several young 
poets and artists came to him and tarried for a time in his guest 
house, moved by curiosity or the hopes of youth—among them 
several Japanese, including Yone Noguchi. And students from 
the University in Berkeley and travelers from remoter places 
made little pilgrimages up into the hills to visit this romantically 
costumed poet and seer who had fought with Indians and now 


Sntrobuction 


37 


preached universal love and peace. To his disciples and lovers 
he lectured in a somewhat oracular tone on the laws of the new 
American poetry, on the conduct of life, and on the new religious 
spirit which is to embrace all mankind. 

Miller’s visitors did not always, however, find him preaching 
peace. His pacificism, like the popular American variety, was 
tempered by hatred of oppression and readiness to fight ‘ ‘ on the 
side of the Lord.” He accepted the “idealistic” interpretation of 
the Spanish-American war, and chanted lustily his encourage¬ 
ment of the struggle to free the Cubans from the tyranny of 
Spain. On the other hand, in his Chants for the Boer , 1900, he 
protested indignantly against the British imperial policy in 
South Africa; and his strong pro-English sympathies give a cer¬ 
tain moral quality to his indignation. “Find here,” he cries, 
“not one ill word for brave old England; my first, best friends 
were English. But for her policy, her politicians, her speculators, 
what man with a heart in him can but hate and abhor these ? 
England’s best friends to-day are those who deplore this assault 
on the farmer Boers, so like ourselves a century back.” 

There was an interesting element of inconsistency between 
the popular American humanitarianism which Miller had grad¬ 
ually adopted as his religion and his strongest poetical impulses, 
which were adventurous and imperialistic. In these later years 
the fire of his fighting youth slumbered in the veins of the white- 
bearded seer, but it was never extinguished, and, every now and 
then, it flashed out. In such seasons pilgrims to The Hights found 
that he was not at home. He was a restless soul—like most Uto- 
pists, ill adapted to the permanency of a Paradise. There was, 
moreover, a steadily disquieting feature in the prospect from his 
hills. At his feet, the great ships rode at anchor. But before 
his eyes daily they lifted anchor and spread their wings and sailed 
away, out through the shining Golden Gate into the Pacific, and 
disappeared on pathless ways over the rim of the world. For 
him, even at the age of sixty, the attraction of unknown places 


38 


Sntrobuction 


was magical. He followed ‘‘ the gleam’ ’ to the islands of the South 
Seas, to Japan, to Alaska. In 1897-8 he was correspondent of the 
New York Journal in the Klondike. Trying to pass from the 
Klondike to the Bering Sea by way of the Yukon, he finds the 
river closed at the edge of the Arctic Circle. “ It was nearly two 
thousand miles to the sea, all ice and snow, with not so much as a 
dog-track before me and only midnight round about me. There 
was nothing to do but to try to get back to my cabin on the 
Klondike. In the line of my employment I kept a journal of the 
solitary seventy-two days and nights—mostly night—spent in the 
silent and terrible ascent of the savage sea of ice.” The imagina¬ 
tive harvest of these later adventures was first gathered up in As 
It Was in the Beginning , 1903, a curious poetical fantasy, oddly 
brought forth in San Francisco in pamphlet form with a cover 
decorated by a figure of a stork bearing in his bill the infant Roose¬ 
velt in spectacles. In 1907, worked over and shorn of its more 
grotesque features, the poem reappeared in dignified form as 
Light , with the interesting prefatory avowal: “My aspiration is 
and ever has been, in my dim and uncertain way, to be a sort of 
Columbus—or Cortez.” (In the collective edition the title is 
changed once more to A Song of Creation.) 

When Miller finally reviewed his own work and prepared his 
collective edition, he saw that much of his verse had been hastily 
written, journalistic, prolix, lacking in form and concentration; 
and he manfully discarded many long passages of it. At the same 
time he felt as never before the importance of his own position 
in American poetry. He had not really achieved a distinctive 
poetical style. He had not been a thinker. He had been a path¬ 
finder of the imagination; like Whitman, he had blazed a way 
into new territories. He had brought something of beauty and 
splendor into American literature. He exulted in the wide lands 
and seas which he first had annexed to the provinces of song. He 
had sung the exodus across the plains. He had pictured the great 
American desert. He had celebrated the forested heights of the 


Sntrobuctton 


39 


Sierras, the giant trees of the Mariposa Grove, and the falls of 
the Yosemite. He had been a myth-maker and had sown with 
poetic legends all his western land from the Yukon and the 
snowy peaks of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Shasta through the golden 
poppy fields of the central valleys to San Diego Bay, Nicaragua, 
and the Amazon River. He had made captive for romance the 
outlaws of old Spanish California, the priests and bandits of 
Mexico, the scouts of Fremont, dusky Indian heroines, and the 
motley multitude of the gold-seekers. He had been the champion 
of oppressed peoples—the Southern Confederacy, the native 
American tribes, the Jews of Russia and Palestine, the Cubans, 
the Boers, the yellow men and the Mexicans in California. And 
then, to widen his horizon at sunset, he had threaded the golden 
straits and had sailed “on and on” to the Arctic Seas, to Hawaii, 
to the Orient, chanting as he sailed, ever ready for fresh adven¬ 
ture, ever in love with light, color, and movement, ever himself 
the romantic troubadour, the picturesque incarnation of the 
spirit which pervades his poems. 




WHEN LITTLE SISTER CAME 


41 


WHEN LITTLE SISTER CAME 


We dwelt in the woods of the Tippe¬ 
canoe, 

In a lone, lost cabin, with never a 
view 

Of the full day’s sun for a whole year 
through. 

With strange half hints through the 
russet corn 

We three were hurried one night. 
Next mom 

There was frost on the trees, and a 
sprinkle of snow 

And tracks on the ground. We 
burst through the door, 

And a girl baby cried—and then we 
were four. 


We were not sturdy, and we were not 
wise, 

In the things of the world, and the 
ways men dare; 

A pale-browed mother with a 
prophet’s eyes, 

A father that dreamed and looked 
anywhere, 

Three brothers—wild blossoms, tall 
fashioned as men 

And we mingled with none, but we 
lived as when 

The pair first lived, ere they knew the 
fall; 

And loving all things we believed in 
all. 


43 











FROM JOAQUIN, Er Al„ 1869 


45 
















IS IT WORTH WHILE? 


Is it worth while that we jostle a 
brother 

Bearing his load on the rough road 
of life? 

Is it worth while that we jeer at each 
other 

In blackness of heart?—that we 
war to the knife? 

God pity us all in our pitiful strife. 

God pity us all as we jostle each 
other; 

God pardon us all for the triumphs 
we feel 

When a fellow goes down 'neath his 
load on the heather, 

Pierced to the heart: words are 
keener than steel, 

And mightier far for woe or for weal. 

Were it not well in this brief little 
iourney 

Overthe isthmus downintothetide, 

We give him a fish instead of a ser¬ 
pent 

Ere folding hands to be and abide 

For ever and aye in dust at his side? 

Look at the roses saluting each other; 

Look at the herds all at peace on 
the plain— 

Man, and man only, makes war on 
his brother, 

And dotes in his heart on his peril 
and pain— 


Shamed by the brutes that go down 
on the plain. 

Is it worth while we should in the 
dust humble 

Our fellows with whispers of guile 
and mistrust? 

God pity us all! Time eft-soon will 
tumble 

All of us together like leaves in a 
gust, 

Humbled indeed, down into the 
dust. 

Why should we envy a moment of 
pleasure 

Some poor fellow-mortal has wrung 
from it all? 

Oh! could you look into his life’s 
broken measure— 

Look at the dregs—at the worm¬ 
wood and gall— 

Look at his heart hung with crape 
like a pall— 

Look at the skeletons down by his 
hearthstone— 

Look at his cares in their merciless 
sway, 

I know you would go and say ten¬ 
derly lowly, 

Brother—my brother, for aye and 
for aye, 

Lo! Lethe is washing the blackness 
away. 


47 




4 8 


Zanara 


ZANARA 


No! It was not well, Zanara, 

While the fever held its riot— 

When the doctors bid be quiet— 
That you came to my bed-side 
In the middle of the night, 

With your two hands on your heart— 
That you pressed on my bed-side 
In the absence of my bride, 

And so pressed upon your heart 
That the blood all thick and black¬ 
ened, 

When your long white fingers slack¬ 
ened, 

Oozed between them to the floor. 

Oh! This mouldy, gory floor! 

Then your linen it was moulded, 

And streaked yellow where it folded, 
And your bosom it was bare, 

Which you know was nothing fair 
In the absence of my bride, 

Then your heavy, slimy hair, 
Creeping, clinging round your 
bosom— 

Clammy bosom, blue and bare, 
Which you did not try to hide. 

Then your eyes had such a glare, 

And the smell of death was there, 
And the spirits that were with you 
Whistled through the mossy door, 
And they danced upon my bosom, 
And they tangled up my hair, 

And made crosses on the floor. 

No! All this was nothing fair 


While the fever held its riot— 

When the doctors bid be quiet. 

It was not my fault, remember, 

All this life of black disasters— 

All this life of dark December— 

All this heart-sickness and sadness, 
Though we both did have our mas¬ 
ters, 

Yours was Love and mine Ambition— 
Mine is driving me to—madness, 
Yours has drove you to perdition. 

But some time, if you so will it, 
When this hot brain is less rabid— 
When our masters both are sleeping— 
When the storm the stars is keeping, 
Leave the darkness where they laid 
you— 

Leave the dampness you inhabit— 
Leave that yellow, moulded linen— 
That dull, sullen, frozen stare, 

And the cold death in your hair; 
Then I will no more upbraid you. 

I will meet you just one minute 
By the oak-tree, you remember, 

With the grapervine tangled in it— 
Meet you, while my bride is sleep¬ 
ing— 

While the storm the stars is keeping. 

I will press your bosom gory— 

I will tell you one sweet story, 

With sweet balm and healing in it. 
But remember, now remember, 

I can stay there but one minute. 



3n Cxile 


49 


IN EXILE 


Alone on this desolate border— 

On this ruggedest, rim’d frontier, 
Where the hills huddle up in disorder 
Like a fold in mortal fear— 

Where the mountains are out at the 
elbow, 

And their yellow coats seedy and 
sere— 

Where the river runs sullen and yellow 
This dismalest day of the year. 

I go up and down on the granite, 
Like an unholy ghost under bans. 
Oh, Christ! for the eloquent quiet! 

For the final folding of hands! 
What am I? Where am I going? 

I look at the lizard that glides 
Over the mossy boulder 

With green epaulets on his sides. 

My feet are in dust to the ankles, 
My heart, it is dustier still; 

Will never the dust be levelled 

Till the heart is laid under the hill? 
Why this yearning and longing? 

This dull desolation and void? 
Pussy cat seeking a corner? 

Alone! yet for ever annoyed? 

I look at the sun shining over, 

A cloud is swinging on hinges 
And is trying his glory to cover. 

But see! his beams in the fringes 
Are tangled and fastened in falling, 
And a sailor above us is calling 
“Untangle the ravels and fringes.” 

In grim battle lines above us 
Gray, oarless ships are wheeling— 

A flash—a crash appalling— 

A hurling of red-hot spears— 


Hark to the thunder calling 
In fierce infernal chorus. 

Now silver sails are falling 
Like silver sheens before us. 

What Nelson to fame aspires 
In the chartless bluer deep 
Where navies and armies track? 

Lo! I have seen their fires 
At night as they bivouac; 

And they battle, and bleed, and weep, 
For this rain is warm as tears. 

Oh! why was I ever a dreamer? 

Better a brute on the plain, 

Or one who believes his redeemer 
Is greed, and gold, and gain, 

Or one who can riot and revel, 

Than be pierced with intolerable 
pain 

Of poesy darling, in travail, 

That will not be born from the brain. 

O bride by the breathing ocean 
With lustrous and brimming eye, 
Pour out the Lethean potion 
Till a lustrum rolleth by, 

Lulling a soul’s commotion, 

Plashing against the sky— 
Calming a living spectre 

With its two hands tossed on high. 

Are sea winds mild and mellow 
Where my sun-browned babies are, 
A-weaving silk and yellow 

Seamed sunbeams in their hair? 

Go on and on in disorder 
O cloud with the silver rim, 

While tangled up in your border 
The glinting sunbeams swim. 


4 




50 


®o tfje Partig of £?. Jf. Pap 

TO THE BARDS OF S. F. BAY 


I am as one unlearned, uncouth, 
From country come to join the 
youth 

Of some sweet town in quest of truth; 

A skilless northern Nazarene— 
From whence no good can ever come. 
I stand apart as one that’s dumb. 

I hope—I fear—I hasten home. 

I plunge into my wilds again. 

I catch your dulcet symphonies, 

I drink the low sweet melodies 
That stream through these dark 
feathered trees 

Like echoes from some far church - 
bell, 

Or music on the water spilled 
Beneath the still moon’s holy spell, 
And life is sweeter—all is well— 

The soul is fed. The heart is filled. 

I move among these frowning firs, 
Black bats wheel by in rippled whirs, 
While naught else living breathes or 
stirs. 

I peep—I lift the boughs apart— 


I tiptoe up—I try to rise— 

I strive to gaze into the eyes 
Of charmers charming thus so wise— 
I coin your faces on my heart. 

I greet you on your brown bent hills 
Discoursing with the beaded rills, 
"While over all the full moon spills 
His flood in gorgeous plenilune. 
W’hite skilful hands sweep o’er the 
strings, 

I heed as when a seraph sings, 

I learn to catch the whisperings, 

I list into the night’s sweet noon. 

I see you by the streaming strand, 

A singing sea-shell in each hand, 

And silk locks tossing as you stand, 
And tangled in the toying breeze. 
And lo! the sea with salty tears, 
While white hands toss, then disap^ 
pear, 

Doth plead that you for years and 

years 

Will stay and sing unto the seas. 


MERINDA 


And this then is all of the sweet life 
she promised! 

And this then is all of the fair life I 
painted! 

Dead, ashen fruit, of the dark Dead 
Sea border! 

Ah yes, and worse by a thousand 
numbers, 

Since that can be cast away at willing, 


While desolate life with its dead hope 
buried 

Clings on to the clay, though the 
soul despise it. 

Back, backward, to-night, is memory 
traversing, 

Over the desert my weary feet 
travelled— 





Jfttertnba 


51 


Thick with the wrecks of my dear 
heart-idols— 

And toppling columns of my ambi¬ 
tion— 

Red with the best of my hot heart’s 
purple. 

Down under the hill and under the 
fir-tree, 

By the spring, and looking far out in 
the valley, 

She stands as she stood in the glori¬ 
ous Olden, 

Swinging her hat in her right hand 
dimpled. 

The other hand toys with a honey¬ 
suckle 

That has tiptoed up and tried to kiss 
her. 

Her dark hair is twining her neck and 
her temples 

Like tendrils some beautiful Parian 
marble. 

‘O eyes of lustre and love and passion! 

O radiant face with the sea-shell 
tinted! 

White cloud with the sunbeams 
tangled in it! ’ 

I cried, as I stood in the dust beneath 
her, 

And gazed on the God my boy-heart 
worshipped 

With a love and a passion a part of 
madness. 

‘Dreamer,’ she said, and a tinge of 
displeasure 

Swept over her face that I should dis¬ 
turb her, 

‘All of the fair world is spread out 
before you; 


Go down and possess it, with love 
and devotion, 

And heart ever tender and touching 
as woman’s, 

And life shall be sweet as the first 
kiss of morning.’ 

I turned down the pathway, blinded 
no longer; 

Another was coming, tall, manly, 
and bearded. 

I built me a shrine in the innermost 
temple— 

In the innermost rim of the red puls¬ 
ing heart 

And placed her therein, sole pos¬ 
sessor and priestess, 

And carved all her words on the walls 
of my heart. 

They say that he wooed her there 
under the fir-tree 

And won her one eve, when the katy¬ 
dids mocked her. 

Well, he may have a maiden and call 
her Merinda; 

But mine is the one that stands there 
for ever 

Leisurely swinging her hat by the 
ribbons. 

They say she is wedded. No, not my 
Merinda, 

For mine stands for ever there under 
the fir-tree 

Gazing and swinging her hat by the 
ribbons. 

They tell me her children reach up to 
my shoulder. 

’Tis false. I did see her down under 
the fir-tree 




Jlepentfje 


52 

When the stars were all busy a-weav¬ 
ing thin laces 

Out of their gold and the moon’s 
yellow tresses, 

Swinging her hat as in days of the 
Olden. 

True, I didn’t speak to or venture to 
touch her— 

Touch her! I sooner would pluck the 
sweet Mary, 

The mother of Jesus, from arms of 
the priesthood 

As they kneel at the altar in holy 
devotion. 

• •••••• 

And was it for this that my heart was 
kept tender? 

Fashioned for thine, O sacristan 
maiden!— 

That coarse men could pierce my 
warm heart to the purple? 

That vandals could enter and burn 
Out its freshness? 

That rude man could trample it into 
the ashes? 

O was it for this that my heart was 
kept open? 


I looked in a glass, not the heart of 
man-mortal. 

Whose was the white soul I seen there 
reflecting ? 

But trample the grape that the wine 
may flow freely! 

Beautiful priestess, mine, mine only, 
for ever! 

You still are secure. They know not 
your temple. 

They never can find it, or pierce it, or 
touch it, 

Because in their hearts they know no 
such a temple. 

I turn my back on them like Enos the 
Trojan. 

Much indeed leaving in wild desola¬ 
tion, 

But bearing one treasure alone that 
is dearer 

Than all they possess or have fiercely 
torn from me; 

A maiden that stands looking far 
far down the valley 

Swinging her hat by its long purple 
ribbons. 


NEPENTHE 


I have a world, a world which is all 
my own, 

Which you, nor foe, nor friend, nor 
kith, nor kin, 

Nor even my own fiery soul, when 
churlish grown, 

Has entered, or shall ever pass 
therein; 

But when all of care and strife aside 
are thrown 


And I am free, then I am there, and 
am not alone. 


No, not alone, for standing there in¬ 
viting me 

On the threshold is God's image 
made of pearl, 

And I relive the elden time with 
that purity— 




Jlepcntfie 


53 


There with a queenly shrined and 
sainted girl, 

I press the green beneath the ancient 
tree, 

And vow the vows and redream the 
mystery. 

What though the real did happen 
years ago! 

What though our lives are wide, 
and still diverge? 

And both of us are wed? Admit it’s 

i 

so. 

Then sitting here to-night, will 
you, sir, urge 

We dare not live that past in all its 
glorious glow? 

Well! you may be good, but there 
are things you do not know. 

To-day I fight the manly pitted fight 
of life, 

I give back deftly hard dealt blow 
for blow, 

To-day is she the mother and the 
patient wife, 

Taking life a fact from fates that 
made it so; 

But lo! to-night I quit the struggling 
strife, 

She is young again, heart-full, and 
lips are rife. 

The long tilled turf is rich again and 
green— 

The long felled oak extends its 
hugest bough, 


And we are there as lang syne we have 
been, 

Giving troth for troth, and plighting 
vow for vow— 

Holy vows for aye upon that belted 
green, 

Where no gray ghosts dare thrust 
themselves between. 

Yet in the morn, amid the reckless 
rush of life, 

First in the duties and foremost in 
the scene, 

She, the fond mother and most loyal 
wife— 

She the peerless of all that’s goodly 
will be seen; 

And girded, I shall marshal for the 
strife 

Without a thought of the glorious 
‘might have been.’ 

And you do star-ward point and bid 
me twine 

The hopes and promise round the 
crumbling heart. 

Well, I have tried, wept and watched 
to read the sign, 

But heaven, my friend,—nay, now, 
do not start— 

But heaven—my heaven at least, is in 
that sweet lang syne— 

There in that world so solely and so 
completely mine. 



54 


Huber tfje <Dak& 

UNDER THE OAKS 


Oaks of the voiceless ages! 
Precepts! Poems! Pages! 

Lessons! Leaves and volumes! 
Arches! Pillars! Columns 
In the corridors of ages! 

Grand patriarchal sages! 

Their Druid beards are drifting 
And shifting to and fro, 

Down to their waists in zephyrs, 
That bat-like come and go; 

The while the moon is sifting 
A sheen of shining snow 
On all these blossoms lifting 
Their blue eyes from below. 

The night has cast his mantle 
Down on the day’s remains; 

For he lies dead before us. 

I seen his red blood stains 
At twilight drifting o’er us 
And these oaks chant above him 
In stately, solemn strains, 


For ah! these Druids love him, 

That knightly day that’s slain, 

And they will robe in sable 
Till he shall rise again. 

I have no tears or sighing, 

For he was not kind to me— 

This dead day here before us, 

O mossy Druid tree 

With dark brow bending o'er us! 

He was not kind to me, 

I will not wail his dying. 

No. It is not green leaves rustling 
That you hear lisping there, 

But bearded, mossy Druids 
Counting beads in prayer. 

No. Not a night-bird singing, 

Nor breeze a green bough swinging: 
But that bough holds a censer 
And swings it to and fro; 

’Tis Sunday eve, remember, 

That’s why they chant so low. 


DIRGE 


* The silver cord loosed, 

The golden bowl broken,’ 

The sunbeam has fallen, 

The Saviour has spoken. 

The yew and the cypress, 

By Lethe’s dark tide, 

Are sweeping to-day— 

A miner has died! 

‘ The white sands have crumbled 
Away from his tread,’ 


By eternity’s ocean— 

A miner is dead! 

His lamp has gone out; 

What else can be done 
Than lay him to sleep 
Till the light of the sun? 

Pine slabs! what of it? 

Marble is dust, 

Cold and as silent— 

And iron is rust. 




^ale 


55 


VALE 


To those who have known my mad 
life's troubles 

I leave these lines—'tis all I have to 
leave 

Save faults and follies; the dreams 
and bubbles 

Of my young life; and O I grieve 

In tears of blood I could not 
worthier weave. 

True, 'tis a farewell piece but poorly 
spoken, 

It is an adieu song but harshly 
sung; 

For the heart beats dull and the 
harp is broken, 

And the hand that o’er the keys is 
flung 

Is nerveless now, and the chords 
unstrung. 

The round red sun is set for me for 
ever, 

And nebulous darkness is rolling 
from afar; 


And I stand adown by death’s dark 
river 

Calmly and alone, for the thoughts 
that war 

Have died, or dimly burn, as yon 
sweet star. 

’Tis well I stand by the rushing river, 

Up to my knees in the blackened 
tide; 

The sounding waters will drown for 
ever 

The critic’s jeers and paynim 
pride,— 

And reviews are not ferried to the 
other side. 

So life is but a day of weary fretting 

As a sickly babe for its mother gone; 

And I fold my hands, only this 
regretting: 

That I have writ no thought, or 
thing, not one, 

That lives, or earns a cross or 
cryptic stone. 


ULTIME 


They tell me, ere the maple leaves 
grow brown once more, 

And the wild deer don their great 
overcoats of gray, 

That I must cross the stony threshold 
of death’s door, 

And leave this body like a pair of 
overalls worn a day 

Outside the hall, or hung on some 
nail out of the way. 

It seems odd, and yet I think, yea do 
know, I do feel 


As little fear as any trodden dust, or 
dull cold clay, 

To hear my Doc., Death’s clerk, and 
attorney for my weal, 

Say I am convicted and that there 
is no appeal. 

Yet, while I have no fear, I feel a 
touch of deep regret—• 

Regrets that burn like red-hot iron 
in the soul, 




56 ®Utme 


That my day is but begun as my sun 
is set. 

But there was that in my young 
life I could not control, 

And now, to-night, as recollections 
o’er me roll, 

I know no time that I loitered by the 
way; 

But with a proud eye fixed on a 
lofty goal, 

Pressed on, nor stopped, or turned 
aside a single day 

To rest, or toy with aught that in my 
rough route lay. 

And yet one time, but one, I do 
remember well, 

My life’s way lay by oaks, and 
talking streams, and flowers; 

And there were birds, and singing 
bees, and a holy spell 

Of dreamy wonder in the air and 
hallowed hours; 

And from afar fair maids did 
beckon from their bowers. 

I looked and loved. But lo! the 
leprous stain 

Of penury, that so much of life’s 
sweetness sours, 

Was mine, and I pushed on in peril 
and deep pain, 

Saying, Sweet scenes, when fame is 
mine we meet again. 

Toiling for ever, chasing a phantom 
hope to earn 

A place with men of mind and a 
moment’s peace; 

With the fevered soul on fire with 
thoughts that burn; 


And revelling in rainbow beauties 
that I could not seize, 

Or subdue, or reduce to shape or 
words; and these 

Did unfit me for the stormy struggle 
with the real. 

Vibrating like some insect pendent 
in the breeze 

Between these varied visions and my 
worldly weal 

I have gained neither the real nor the 
sweet ideal. 

Quoting Seneca, who wrote on his 
desk of gold: 

Dear sir! what is the use of wealth? 
you naively say. 

Sir! in your life’s craft with its well 
stocked hold, 

Your money is the white oak planks 
that lay 

Between you and the howling 
waves; these away, 

And you are in the sea without 
friends or a pretence, 

Then keep your head above the 
water if you may. 

Besides, the days of Diogenes are 
over now, and hence 
Philosophers in tubs are kept at 
the State’s expense. 

••••••• 

None have known me, nor have I my¬ 
self the least part known 
Until prisoned here by him of the 
sable shore 

Till he can transport me to quarters 
of his own. 

Here I have reflected and ran my 
fierce life o’er. 



Wttme 


Ah! truly, much indeed have I to 
deplore, 

Yet not one single act of malicious ill. 

I meant well in all. Who could 
have done more? 

And have I not tamed my hot and 
imperious will? 

Have I not made my impulsive heart 
be still? so still! 

Why have I been pursued in this 
small, low way; 

Why have I been crossed in my 
every honest aim; 

From my childhood on, even down to 
this dark day? 

I claimed not much of men, and 
less, far less, of fame. 

Was it because I could not, or that 
I would not, tame 

And tone my cloud-born soul in sup- 
pliance to bow 

Me down to dolts, and knaves, and 
clowns, that did proclaim 

Them wise, and great, and good? 
Ah! even yet I trow 

My spirit lives. I would not, could 
not, I will not now. 

‘Know thyself 1 ’ What had I to do 
with strife and war? 

I smote, then held him to my heart 
and wept until he died. 

And did I fear? this deep facial 
arrow’s scar, 

And a list of lesser ones have aye 
the thought belied, 

And yet I do remember me I have 
turned aside 

To avoid the hart I had sought the 
whole day long. 


57 

And why in stormy courts have I 
so zealous plied, 

And plead, dark-browed, and hurled 
invective strong, 

Then wept at night to think I might 
have done some wrong? 

‘Know thyself!’ Had I known less 
of strife and flint-like men— 

Had I been content to live on the 
leafy borders of the scene 

Communing with the neglected 
dwellers of the fern-grown glen, 
And glorious storm-stained peaks, 
with cloud-knit sheen, 

And sullen iron brows, and belts of 
boundless green, 

A peaceful, flowery path, content, I 
might have trod, 

And carolled melodies that per¬ 
chance might have been 

Read with love and a sweet delight. 
But I kiss the rod. 

I have done as best I knew. The 
rest is with my God. 

Come forward here to me, ye who 
have a fear of death, 

Come down, far down, even to the 
dark waves’ rim, 

And take my hand, and feel my calm, 
low breath 

How peaceful all! How still and 
sweet! The sight is dim, 

And dreamy as a distant sea. And 
melodies do swim 

Around us here as a far-off vesper’s 
holy hymn. 

This is death. With folded hands I 
wait and welcome him; 



5» 




And yet a few, so few, were kind, I 
would live and be known, 

That their sweet deeds might be 
bread on the waters thrown. 

I go, I know not where, but know I 
will not die, 

And know I will be gainer going to 
that somewhere; 

For in that hereafter, afar beyond 
the bended sky, 

Bread and butter will not figure in 
the bill of fare, 

Nor will the soul be judged by 
what the flesh may wear. 

But with all my time my own, once 
in the dapple skies, 

I will collect my fancies now float¬ 
ing in the air 

And arrange them, a jewel set, that 
in a show-case lies 

And when you come will show you 
them in a sweet surprise. 

It was my boy-ambition to be read 
beyond the brine, 

But this you know was when life 
looked fair and tall, 

Erewhile this occidental rim was my 
dream’s confine, 

And now at last I make no claim 
to be read at all, 

And write with this wild hope, and 
e’en that is small, 

That when the last pick-axe lies rust¬ 
ing in the ravine, 

And its green bent hill-sides echo 
the shepherd’s call, 

Some curious wight will thumb this 
through, saying, ‘Well, I ween 


He was not a poet, but yet, and yet, 
he might have been.' 

Above all on this green earth a 
grumbler I do despise, 

Pouring o’er all a sea of tears and 
untimely groans, 

As if he alone had stood upon the 
bridge of sighs; 

And yet I wail. But mind you my 
murmurs and low moans, 

(Not heard till I am gone) are not 
of you, or Smith, or Jones, 

But fate. Good folks. The world 
the best I ever trod. 

Yet lapidaries tell of flaws in the 
fairest stones, 

And maybe after all, my crosses, my 
losses, and the rod, 

Are but rounds in a ladder leading me 
thus soon to God. 

But to conclude. Do not stick me 
down in the cold wet mud, 

As if I wished to hide, or was 
ashamed of what I had done, 

Or my friends wanted to plant me 
like an Irish spud. 

No, when this the first short 
quarter of my life is run, 

Let me ascend in clouds of smoke 
up to the sun. 

And as for these lines, they are a 
rough, wild-wood bouquet, 
Plucked from my mountains in the 
dusk of life, as one 

Without taste or time to select, or 
put in good array 

Grasps at once rose, leaf, briar, on the 
brink, and hastes away. 



SONGS OF THE SIERRAS, 1871 


59 



TO MAUD 


Because the skies were blue, because 
The sun in fringes of the sea 
Was tangled, and delightfully 
Kept dancing on as in a waltz, 

And tropic trees bowed to the seas 
And bloomed and bore years through 
and through, 

And birds in blended gold and blue 
Were thick and sweet as swarming 
bees, 

And sang as if in Paradise 

And all that Paradise was spring— 

Did I too sing with lifted eyes, 

Because I could not choose but sing. 

With garments full of sea winds blown 
From isles beyond of spice and balm, 
Beside the sea, beneath her palm, 

She waits, as true as chiseled stone, 
My childhood’s child, my June in 
May, 

WALKER IN 

CHANT I 
I 

That man who lives for self alone 
Lives for the meanest mortal known. 

I celebrate no man of strife, 

I eat no bread with blood upon. 

6 


So wiser than thy father is, 

These lines, these leaves, and all of 
this 

Are thine—a loose,uncouth bouquet— 
So, wait and watch for sail or sign, 

A ship shall mount the hollow seas 
Blown to thy place of blossomed trees, 
And birds, and song, and summer- 
shine. 

I throw a kiss across the sea, 

I drink the winds as drinking wine, 
And dream they are all blown from 
thee— 

I catch the whispered kiss of thine. 
Shall I return with lifted face, 

Or head held down as in disgrace 
To hold thy two brown hands in 
mine? 

England, 1871 

NICARAGUA 

’Twere braver far to live unknown, 
To live alone and die alone 
Than owe sweet song, aye owe sweet 
life, 

Or sweeter fame, to saber drawn. 

II 

Wreathe ye who may the victor’s 
bay, 




62 


fflalfeer tti J&uaragua 


Fill book on book with battles, then 
Fill every public park you may 
With iron-fashioned fighting men 
Begirt with blade and cannon ball, 
With not one woman’s plinth mid all. 

But she who rocks the cradle, she 
Who croons and rocks all day, all 
night, 

And knows no public place or name 
Makes far the better, braver fight, 
Deserves a nobler, fairer fame 
Than all bronze men of historic. 

The foot that rocks the babe to 
rest 

Keeps step, keeps song with singing 
dawn. 

The hand that holds the babe to 
breast 

Is sceptered as King Solomon. 

And yet, for all she does, has done, 
Has not one monument, not one! 

III 

And he who guides the good plow¬ 
share, 

Binds golden sheaves, unnamed, 
unknown, 

Who harvests what his hand hath 
sown, 

Does more for God, for man, his 
own— 

Dares more than all mad heroes dare. 

IV 

And like to him the man who 
keeps 

Calm watch on Freedom’s outer wall, 


Who sees the great moon rise and fall 
Yet sleeps and rests and rests and 
sleeps— 

The man who knows, the man who 

sees 

God in the grass, God in the trees, 
Sees good in all, sees God in all— 
Gets more, gives more, does more 
true weal 

Than all your storied men of steel. 

S. 

V 

But nobler still the man who leads 
Far out the deadly firing line 
To hew the way, subdue, refine 
By dauntless and unselfish deeds; 
Who lays aside his student’s book 
And gathers up his knotted thews 
And, facing westward, hews and hews 
The way for plowshare, pruning hook 
And scarce recks if he win or lose; 
Who sees white duty over all, 

Fair duty, halo-topt and tall, 

Far pointing where his pathway lies, 
And dares not falter, rest, repine, 
But forward, forward, wins and— 
dies. 

VI 

I sing this man who sought man’s 
good, 

Who fought for peace, unselfish 
fought, 

Who silent fell and murmured not, 
This man whom no man understood, 
This great man so well-nigh forgot, 
This man who led, who faltered not, 
This student, soldier, president, 



Walter in 

Who chose the weaker side and sent 
Such spirit through his fearless few 
As only Khartoum Gordon knew. 

VII 

I sing those children of the sun 
Because I love them and because 
I would that you should love them, 
too, 

As tenderly as he had done 
Ere Fate laid her cold finger to 
His bounding pulse and bade him 
pause. 

VIII 

A man to love, a land to love; 

A land of gold, of sapphire seas, 

Such blue below, such blue above, 
Such fruits and ever-flowered trees— 
The fairest Eden-land that is, 

And I am joyed that it is his; 

He won it, holds, with dust-full 
hands— 

This soldier born, born and not made, 
Who scorned to make rude war a 
trade. 

IX 

A soldier born, let this be said 
Above my brave, dishonored dead; 

I ask no more, this is not much, 

Yet I disdain a colder touch 
To memory as dear as his; 

For he was true as steel, or star, 

And brave as Yuba's grizzlies are, 

Yet gentle as a panther is 


Jfticaragua 63 

Mouthing her young in her first 
fierce kiss. 

X 

A dash of sadness in his air, 

Born, may be, of his over care, 

And may be, born of a despair 
In early love—I never knew; 

I question not, as many do, 

Of things as sacred as this is; 

I only know that he to me 
Was all a father, friend, could be; 

I sought to know no more than this 
Of history of him or his. 

A piercing eye, a princely air, 

A presence like a chevalier, 

Half angel and half Lucifer; 
Sombrero black, with plume of snow 
That swept his careless locks below; 
A red serape with bars of gold, 

All heedless falling, fold on fold, 

A sash of silk, where flashing swung 
A sword as swift as serpent’s tongue, 
In sheath of silver chased in gold; 
Great Spanish spurs with bells of 
steel 

That dash’d and dangled at the heel; 
A face of blended pride and pain, 

Of mingled pleading and disdain, 
With shades of glory and of grief— 
The famous filibuster chief 
Stood front his men among the trees 
That top the fierce Cordilleras, 

With bent arm arched above his 
brow;— 

Stood still, he stands, a picture, 
now— 

Long gazing down his inland seas. 




6 4 


Walfeer in Nicaragua 


XI 

What strange, strong, bearded 
men were these 
He led above his tropic seas! 

Men sometimes of uncommon birth, 
Men rich in stories all untold, 

Who boasted not, though more than 
bold, 

Blown from the four parts of the 
earth. 

Men mighty-thewed, as Sampson 
was, 

That had been kings in any cause, 

A remnant of the races past; 
Dark-browed, as if in iron cast, 
Broad-breasted as twin gates of 
brass,— 

Men strangely brave and fiercely 
true, 

Who dared the West when giants 
were, 

Who erred, yet bravely dared to err— 
A remnant of that dauntless few 
Who held no crime or curse or vice 
As dark as that of cowardice; 

With blendings of the worst and best 
Of faults and virtues that have blest 
Or cursed or thrilled the human 
breast. 

XII 

They rode, a troop of bearded men, 
Rode two and two out from the town, 
And some were blonde and some were 
brown, 

And all as brave as Sioux; but when 
From warlike Leon south, the line 
That bound them in the laws of man 


Was passed, and peace stood mute 
behind 

And streamed a banner to the wind 
The world knew not, there was a 
sign 

Of awe, of silence, rear and van. 

XIII 

Men thought who scarce had 
thought before; 

I heard the clang and clash of steel 
From sword at hand and spur at heel 
And iron feet, but nothing more. 

XIV 

Some thought of Texas, some of 
Maine, 

But one of wood-set Tennessee. 

And one of Avon thought, and one 
Thought of an isle beneath the sun, 
And one, a dusky son of Spain, 

Soft hummed his senorita’s air, 

Half laughed, shook back his heavy 
hair 

And then—he would not think again, 
And one of Wabash thought, and he 
Thought tenderly, thought tearfully; 
And one turned sadly to the Spree. 

XV 

Defeat meant something more than 
death; 

The world was ready, keen to smite, 
As stem and still beneath its ban 
With iron will and bated breath, 
Their hands against their fellow-man, 
They rode—each man an Ishmaelite. 




65 


Malfeer in ifttcaragua 


XVI 

But when we topped the hills of 
pine, 

These men dismounted, doffed their 
cares, 

Talk’d loud and laugh’d old love 
affairs, 

And on the grass took meat and wine, 
And never gave a thought again 
To land or life that lay behind, 

Or love, or care of any kind 
Beyond the present cross or pain. 

XVII 

And I, a waif of stormy seas, 

A child among such men as these, 
Was blown along this savage surf 
And rested with them on the turf, 
And took delight below the trees. 

XVIII 

I did not question, did not care 
To know the right or wrong. I saw 
That savage freedom had a spell, 
And loved it more than word can tell. 
I snapped my fingers at the law, 

And dared to laugh, and laughed to 
dare. 

XIX 

I bear my burden of the shame,— 
I shun it not, and naught forget, 
However much I may regret; 

I claim some candor to my name, 
And courage cannot change or die,— 
Did they deserve to die? they died! 
Let justice then be satisfied, 

And as for me, why, what am I? 


XX 

The standing side by side till death, 
The dying for some wounded friend, 
The faith that failed not to the end, 
The strong endurance till the breath 
And body took their ways apart, 

I only know. I keep my trust. 

Their vices! earth has them by heart: 
Their virtues! they are with the dust. 

XXI 

How we descended, troop on troop, 
As wide-winged eagles downward 
swoop! 

How wound we through the fragrant 
wood, 

With all its broad boughs hung in 
green, 

With sweeping mosses trailed be¬ 
tween ! 

How waked the spotted beasts of 
prey, 

Deep sleeping from the face of day, 
And dashed them, like a dashing 
flood, 

Down deep defile and densest wood! 

XXII 

What snakes! long, lithe and beau¬ 
tiful 

As green and graceful boughed 
bamboo. 

How they did twine them through 
and through 

Green boughs that hung red-fruited 
full! 

One, monster-sized, above me hung, 


5 



66 


Walter in J^ttatagua 


Close eyed me with his bright pink 
eyes, 

Then raised his folds, and swayed 
and swung, 

And licked like lightning his red 
tongue, 

Then oped his wide mouth with 
surprise; 

He writhed and curved and raised 
and lowered 

His folds, like liftings of the tide, 
Then sank so low I touched his side, 
As I rode by, with my boy’s sword. 
The trees shook hands high overhead, 
And bowed and intertwined across 
The narrow way, while leaves and 
moss 

And luscious fruit, gold-hued and red, 
Through all the canopy of green, 

Let not one sun-shaft shoot between. 

XXIII 

Birds hung and swung, green-robed 
and red, 

Or drooped in curved lines dreamily, 
Rainbows reversed, from tree to tree, 
Or sang low hanging overhead— 

Sang low, as if they sang and slept, 
Sang faint like some far waterfall, 
And took no note of us at all, 

Though nuts that in the way were 
spread 

Did crash and crackle where we stept. 

XXIV 

Wild lilies, tall as maidens are, 

As sweet of breath, as purely fair, 

As fair as faith, as true as truth, 

Fell thick before our iron tread, 


In fragrant sacrifice of ruth. 

Rich ripened fruit a fragrance shed 
And hung in hand-reach overhead, 

In nest of blossoms on the shoot, 

The very shoot that bore the fruit. 

XXV 

How ran lithe monkeys through 
the leaves! 

How rush’d they through, brown clad 
and blue, 

Like shuttles hurried through and 
through 

The threads a hasty weaver weaves! 
How quick they cast us fruits of gold, 
Then loosened hand and all foothold, 
And hung, limp, limber, as if dead, 
Hung low and listless overhead; 

And all the time with half-oped eyes 
Bent full on us in mute surprise— 
Looked wisely too, as wise hens do 
That watch you with the head askew- 

XXVI 

The long day through, from blos¬ 
somed trees, 

There came the sweet song of sweet 
bees, 

With chorus tones of cockatoo 
That slid his beak along the bough 
And walked and talked and hung and 
swung, 

In crown of gold and coat of blue, 
The wisest fool that ever sung, 

Or wore a crown or held a tongue. 

XXVII 

Oh! when we broke the somber 
wood 




6 7 


fflalfcer in 

And pierced at last a sunny plain, 
How wild and still with wonder stood 
The proud mustangs with bannered 
mane 

And necks that never knew a rein, 
And nostrils lifted high, and blown, 
Fierce breathing as a hurricane: 

Yet by their leader held the while 
In solid column, square and file, 

And ranks more martial than our 
own! 

XXVIII 


Some one above the common kind, 
Some one to look to, lean upon, 

May be, is much a woman’s mind; 
But it was mine, and I had drawn 
A rein beside the chief while we 
Rode down the mesa leisurely. 

Then he grew kind and questioned me 
Of kindred, home, and home affair, 
Of how I came to wander there, 

A*nd had my father herds and land 
And men in hundreds at command? 

At which I, silent, shook my head, 
Then, timid, met his eyes and said: 
“Not so. Where sunny foothills run 
Down to the North Pacific sea, 

And where Willamette meets the sun 
In many angles, patiently 
My father tends some flocks of snow, 
And turns alone the mellow sod 
And sows some fields not over broad, 
And mourns my long delay in vain, 
Nor bids one serve man come or go; 
While mother from her wheel or 
churn, 

And maybe from the milking shed, 


iSitaragua 

Oft lifts an humbled wearied head 
To watch and wish her boy’s return 
Across the camas’ blossomed plain.’’ 

XXIX 

He held his bent head very low, 

A sudden sadness in his air; 

Then reached and touched my yellow 
hair 

And tossed the long locks in his hand, 
Toyed with them, sudden let them go, 
Then thrummed about his saddle bow 
As thought ran swift across his face; 
Then turning instant in his place, 

He gave some short and quick com¬ 
mand. 

They brought the best steed of the 
band, 

They swung a carbine at my side, 

He bade me mount and by him ride, 
And from that hour to the end 
I never felt the need of friend. 

XXX 


Far in a wildest quinine wood 
We found a city old—so old 
Its very walls were turned to mould 
And stately trees upon them stood. 
No history has mentioned it, 

No map has given it a place; 

The last dim trace of tribe and race— 
The world’s forgetfulness is fit. 

XXXI 

It held one structure grand and 
moss’d, 

Mighty as any castle sung, 




68 


Walker in i^icaragua 


And old when oldest Ind was young, 
With threshold Christian never 
crossed; 

A temple builded to the sun, 

Along whose somber altar-stone 
Brown, bleeding virgins had been 
strown 

Like leaves, when leaves are crisp and 
dun, 

In ages ere the Sphynx was born, 

Or Babylon knew night, or morn. 

XXXII 

My chief swift up the marble stept— 
He ever led, through that wild land—• 
When down the stones, with double 
hand 

To his machete, a Sun priest leapt. 
Hot bent to barter life for life, 

A Texan drave his Bowie knife 
Full through his thick and broad 
breast bone, 

And broke the point against the 
stone, 

The dark stone of the temple wall. 

I saw him loose all hold and fall 
Full length with head hung down the 
stone; 

I saw run down a ruddy flood 
Of smoking, pulsing human blood. 
Then from the dusk there crept a 
crone 

And kissed the gory hands and face, 
And smote herself. Then one by one 
Some dusk priests crept and did the 
same, 

Then bore the dead man from the 
place. 

Down darkened aisles the brown 
priests came, 


So picture-like, with sandaled feet 
And long, gray, dismal, grass-wove 
gowns, 

So like the pictures of old time, 

And stood all still and dark of frowns, 
At blood upon the stone and street. 
Stern men laid ready hand to sword 
And boldly spake some bitter word; 
But they were stubborn still and 
stood 

Fierce frowning as a winter wood, 
And mutt’ring something of the 
crime 

Of blood upon their temple stone, 

As if the first that it had known! 

XXXIII 

We strode on through each massive 
door 

With clash of steel at heel, and with 
Some swords all red and ready drawn. 
I traced the sharp edge of my sword 
Along both marble wall and floor 
For crack or crevice; there was none. 
From one vast mount of marble stone 
The mighty temple had been cored 
By nut-brown children of the sun, 
When stars were newly bright and 
blithe 

Of song along the rim of dawn, 

A mighty marble monolith! 

CHANT II 
I 

So old, so new and yet how old 
This forest's green , that mesa's gold! 

Rank, wild oats, waving in wild 
strength—• 



(Sfflalfeer in 

The lion’s tawny mane and length! 

Rank Artemesia, odorous 

And gray with bald antiquity— 

The rough arroyo swallowed us 
As we rode down by two, by three, 
The braying ass, the neighing stud— 
And now the mesa, broad and free; 
Tall cacti blooms, as tipt with blood: 
And here a burning bush, and there 
The red night-blooming cereus 
Kneeled low, as if saluting us— 
Kneeled as some red-robed monk at 
prayer, 

High up the gleaming steeps of snow 
Of Zacatecas, Mexico. 

To left such green wood, and such 
green! 

To right brown mesa, bald and bare: 
But where we rode, the two between— 
Such crimson, crimson everywhere! 
Aye, earth was gaily garmented; 

The great, green robe spread far 
away, 

So far no man would dare to say, 

And this great, green robe fringed 
with red, 

Lay trackless, lifeless as the dead. 

The yellow lion’s skin behind, 

The wild oats waving in the wind; 
But that dense, silent wold of death 
Drew not a breath, knew not a 
breath! 

II 

From Oro Yare toward the sea 
Slow rounding down the river’s 
source, 

Red men, brown men, foot, cavalry, 
We marched, a mottled, maniac 
force— 


iHtcaragua 69 

We rode so close to this dense wood 
So somber, silent, deep and lorn, 
That when at last we slow drew rein 
The heat was as a choking pain. 

The chief stood in his stirrups; stood 
With set lips lifted up in scorn 
To thus be baffled by a wood 
And looked and looked that sultry 
mom: 

The while our allies looked away 
As if in dread to say or stay. 

Far, far afield from out the night 
Of silent blackness burst a cone 
Of comely fashion, marble white, 

And lone as God, as white and lone 
As God upon the great white throne. 

He beck’d some brown men, bade 
them say: 

Then slow, a sandaled, nude old man, 
As if not daring to say nay 
Began, fast pointing far away— 

Then two, then three, then all began. 

Ill 

Such stories as our allies said 
Of such strange people meshed and 
hid 

That drear, deep wilderness amid— 
Their very name they spoke with 
dread! 

They were not white men, brown 
men, red, 

Not Spanish blood, not native blood, 
Not Toltec, Aztec, but a race 
Of cruel men who claimed to trace 
Their fathers back beyond the flood— 
Beyond the time when they alone 
Took refuge on their rock-ribb’d cone. 



70 (Slalfeer in 

Such stories as our allies told 
Of gold, of river-beds of gold 
Far in that lost land’s wood-walled 
heart 

That lay below the comely cone 
As made our filibusters start 
And think of this and this alone: 

The while the silent chief looked down 
Upon their zeal with sullen frown. 

Such stories of red gold at mom 
When savage rivers, sudden born 
Of thunder, had swept on and on— 
Such seams of gold that lay upon 
White beds of quartz, bright as the 
sun 

When night and sudden storm were 
done: • 

Free gold for all who deemed it fit 
To stoop, take up and husband it. 

vSuch stories as our allies told 
Of armlets, wristlets, wrought in gold 
So massive that the arms grew long 
And sinewy and over strong 
For battle from the very weight 
Of gold; of gold-wrought arrowheads, 
Of gold in shallow brooklet beds 
As plentiful as yellow corn 
Sown ere the blackbirds swoop at 
morn 

To storm the thrifty farmer’s gate: 

IV 

Such stories as our allies told 
Of how, in armored days of old, 

The Spaniard here had dared and 
died 

In all his splendid strength and pride, 
In maddened greed for this red gold: 


iHitarasua 

How, many times in after years, 
Troop after troop went forth again, 
The Spanish Don, the dauntless son, 
To dare the dread obsidian spears, 
The gold-wrought arrowheads like 
rain— 

But never one returned, not one! 

Such stories as our allies said 
Of tall, dusk women, garmented 
Like unto fairest flowered trees; 

Of busy women, like to bees, 

Who chased the purple butterfly 
Far up the gray steeps of the sky 
And plucked his little silken nest 
To spin and weave the gorgeous vest, 
The yellow robe, raboso red: 

vSuch stories as our allies told 
Of temples builded to the sun, 

Of human sacrifice and how, 

Like stealthy panthers, even now, 
These beauteous, sultry, moonlight 
nights, 

Hard men steal down, just as of old, 
And seize fair maidens for their rites 
That this was why the land lay bare: 
Of flock or field or maiden fair, 

All up and down, for leagues away— 
That even now, this very day, 

Their yonder homeward trail was 
plain 

With little footprints made in pain: 
Tom feet that turn not back again. 

V 

You ask me what my chieftain 
said? 

He rarely said, he simply did. 
Dismounting where the lame feet led, 



(fflalker in jBttcaragua 


7i 


Shut in as shuts a coffin lid, 

He chose his choicest at a sign 
And silent led right on and on; 

Right on all day, right on all night, 
And not one foot set left or right, 
And not one faltered yea or nay 
Or turned his head to see or say 
Until, at sudden burst of dawn, 

A smell of water was and then 
That ugly, growling bulldog drum! 

It turned the very leaves one side 
The while it howled, “They come! 
They come! ’ ’ 

VI 

And they, too, came, came as a 
blast 

Of twisting March winds, gust on 
gust, 

Whirl red leaves, dead leaves, ashes, 
dust— 

A cyclone scarce could sweep so fast, 
Scant time to choose a friendly tree, 
Scarce time to drop a bended knee, 
To catch quick carbine to its place 
And fall hard fighting, face to face. 

Was ever such hot place of death! 
Scarce room was there to draw full 
breath: 

Red vines climbed up, green boughs 
hung down, 

Red-pepsin, green-leaved rubber-tree, 
Black banyan in black density! 

I dared a precious second’s pause 
To choose my tree: I chose because 
Great ivy vines climbed high, climbed 
higher 

All crimson to its very crown— 
Elijah’s chariot of fire! 


VII 

Such tangle, jungle, who could 
stand? 

Such jungle, tangle, who could see? 
What need, indeed, to see when we 
Fell instant fighting, hand to hand? 
Long bamboo lances searched us out, 
Short javelins, with points of glass, 
Great arrowheads of gold, like hail! 
Ah! it had been a sorry rout 
Had each not held his narrow pass— 
With not one left to tell the tale. 

They fought in herd, they fell in 
heap, 

Rushed here, rushed there, like silly 
sheep, 

And met behind each blazing tree 
A double-barreled battery, 

A dozen deadly, leaden shot, 

Till suddenly the rush and din 
Of arrow, spear, lance, javelin, 

And all that frenzied host was not. 

VIII 

And yet, what scores could not 
retreat! 

’Twas pitiful! Spare me the pain, 
The hard, sad detail of the slain, 

The brave dead clutching to the loam 
As if to hold their ancient home 
Forever back from stranger feet! 

IX 

He dashed right on, but bade me 
stay; 

No time for parley or delay; 

He called his every man to come— 




72 


Walker in JSuarasua 


As ever, he was still the first— 

His men were dying, dead of thirst: 
And then to drive the vantage home! 

X 

A little time, then such a shout! 

I knew the men then drank their fill, 
I felt their feasting, do not doubt, 

I smelled ripe plantains, rind of red 
And cored like unto yellow cream; 

I saw bananas bank the stream, 

Ripe mangoes hanging overhead— 

So dead with hunger, thirst! I seem 
To see them, breathe them, taste 
them still: 

To see men feasting to their fill, 

One hand the gun, red fruit in one, 
The swift, sweet water at their feet: 
And I shall see, shall feel them eat 
And drink and drink till life is done. 

I heard a cautious low-bird call. 

He came, and with him came just one: 
Canteen, machete, ripe mangoes, gun, 
And I must eat, drink, share with all. 

XI 

Just then a child, her sweet face red 
With blood, crept from a heap of 
dead. 

I leaned down, drew her to my knee, 
Bathed her sweet face, then hurriedly 
To where a dying comrade lay 
Beside his war-tom battle tree; 

And lo! the poor girl followed me 
And tried to help, to soothe, to say. 

The chief had chased the frenzied 
throng 


On o’er the stream a short half mile; 
Had watched it melt into the isle 
And then, as if ten thousand strong 
Stood at his back in bold guard line, 
Had placed his every man, save one— 
Then up and dow r n, machete and gun, 
They paced and passed the counter¬ 
sign, 

And laughed their city, Chantale, 
Laughed gold-strewn, gory Chantale 
Dim seen through copse of banyan 
tree. 

And light of step, as jaunty, gay 
As on some happy holiday 
They stepped with head high in the 
air, 

And sang, sang loud and saucily. 

And now and then a shot rang out 
At interval of song and shout 
Tow’rd gold-strewn, gory Chantale 
And tore through island vine and tree. 

XII 

Gods! what a dauntless, daring 
sight! 

Why, these strange men had fought 
all day! 

Why, these strong men had marched 
all night; 

Why, they had scarcely ate or slept, 
Yet still with saucy pride they stept 
And still each step was spank and 
gay. 

XIII 

Dusk came, such solemn, stately 
dusk! 

Black clouds blocked up a sky of red, 



Walker in 

The hot wood had a smell of musk— 
Of dying roses for the dead. 

Then lightning was, and thunder 
low, 

Low rumbling lion-like and slow, 
Then that dread drum began to beat 
A bow-shot front us amid the isle! 
Why, they had made a mad retreat—• 
Were they not marshaling mean¬ 
while? 

XIV 

That bull-dog drum was like a chill; 
It made night monstrous; men stood 
still 

And looked their brave chief in the 
face. 

Why, had God filled the fiery skies 
With thunder, lightning, had He 
filled 

The earth with every fighting race 
That knows the ugly trade of death 
And asked their lives in sacrifice 
These men had scarcely cared a 
breath, 

Yet now they stood unnerved and 
chilled. 

Would it but miss a single note, 
Pause but to take a single breath, 

As any bull-dog’s breath is drawn, 
’Twere not so worse to bear than 
death! 

But no, that belching bull-dog throat 
Belched on, belched on, right on and 
on. 

XV 

He saw their dread then slowly 
said 


J&icaragua 73 

“How many? and when will they 
come? ” 

“Pass me the guard line, chief,” I 
said, 

“Pass me the guard and you shall 
know 

What says, what means that chilling 
drum: 

Night gathers, and the ghostly dead 
Are not more noiseless where they go 
Than I shall go, go, come again; 

Or, silent, join the happier slain.” 

XVI 

He wrote, wrote calmly; they must 
feel 

His confidence, his nerve of steel, 

His sure possession to the last. 

I thrust the thin script down my boot, 
Stept back, stood firm, made slow 
salute, 

Turned on my heel and hastened past. 

XVII 

The dappled sky now darkened till 
The moon came out, and then was 
gone, 

And all was black and wild and wide, 
I should have lost my way and died 
Had not that drum beat on and on. 
The warm wave swept above my 
waist; 

I pushed right on in eager haste. 

I felt a light touch suddenly, 

Looked down in dread and lo! ’twas 
she. 

And how could she have passed 
the line? 





74 


Walker in i^icaragua 


And why? I thought her surely crazed; 
Or, may be, sadly hurt and dazed, 
And took her little hand in mine. 

I led her up the shallow sand 
Against the somber, wooded land 
To where the mango, tamarind 
And black, wide-rooted banyan tree 
Reached out to warn and welcome 
me. 

I was so worn, so weak and worn, 
My dripping hands hung down as 
lead. 

I could not lift my sinking head; 

I heard the widowed mothers mourn, 
Still heard that hoarse dog bark and 
beat 

And knew they would not now 
retreat. 

XVIII 

And yet I could not lift a hand, 
But drooped and sank upon the sand. 
I tried, I tried, I could not rise, 

I could not open my dull eyes. 

And all the time that dog kept on, 

A dog that never would be gone! 

It made me sleep, it made me 
dream— 

That drum seemed some deep 
orchestra 

Where I could see sweet players play, 
Low-voiced; then sudden all did 
seem 

A coarse and cruel tragedy. 

Red lightning lit the ample stage; 
Black thunder thrust italics through 
The bloody text, then in his rage, 

As if not knowing what to do, 


Turned back and hewed with such 
mad stroke 

My mighty trees that I awoke. 

How I had slept! just clay and clod. 
For all the living, all the dead, 

The might, the majesty of God, 

The hideous, haunting death, the 
dread—■ 

I could but hear that monodin, 

That monster alligator skin 
Right on, right on, dog-like and deep, 
And sleep right on, and sleep and 
sleep! 

I thrust, thrust hard out either 
hand: 

And still, all chill! I was alone! 

And she had sold me, my command! 
At sun the sacrificial stone; 

And then no more that horrid drum— 
Why had she gone? where had she 
gone? 

I tried to hope she yet might come— 
The while that drum beat on and on! 

A finger to her lip, then sand 
She plucked and let it sift and run 
And pointed sunward, ere the sun! 
vSo many? and they come so soon? 
The sky was spotted, rain and moon, 
But with the first cloud we were gone; 
The while that bull-dog barked right 
on! 

He waiting, leaned and caught her 
hand, 

She stooped, took up, let fall the sand, 
Then pointed sunward, ere the sun— 
A sign, and that brave, worn, guard 
line, 



Walker in iSttaragua 


75 


Swift, single file, still as the dead, 
They passed with mournful, martial 
tread, 

Paced back that midnight track 
again, 

A pietous line of blood and pain: 

Yet not one man there to repine, 

Not one impatient word, not one. 

XIX 

He paused, the last man to retreat, 
When all had silent passed the dead, 
He stood with bowed, uncovered 
head, 

Devoutest hero of defeat. 

And then he turned, hat still in hand, 
And bowed before her, low, so low 
He almost touched her sandaled feet, 
And gently beckoned she should go: 
She stirred not and he spake com¬ 
mand. 

I had not known she was so tall, 
Knew not that she was nobly born 
Until I saw her black eyes burn 
And instant take command of all 
In that long, sudden, sad return, 

So silent, drooping and forlorn. 

She beckoned him and he obeyed, 
Kneeled only as brave men can kneel, 
Up rose; and then the clank of steel, 
The eager clutching of a blade— 

And then the sullen tread and tread: 
That baying dog behind—the dead! 

XX 

She stripped the gold hoops from 
each hand, 


From wrists, from arms and nothing 
said, 

But laid them gently by the dead: 
Then beckoned quiet, quick com¬ 
mand. 

“Pass on, on, on, at any cost, 

Not one brief moment to be lost! ’’ 
Then on, on, on, fast and more fast, 
And she, alone, the very last, 

Until, just at the break of day— 
Were ever bugle notes so clear? 

Was ever dinner-horn so dear? 

We heard, we heard our horses neigh! 

CHANT III 

I 

More marches through brown 
mesa, wood. 

More marches through too much 
blood, 

And then at last sweet inland seas. 

A city there, white-walled, and brown 
With age, in nest of orange trees; 
And this we won and many a town 
And rancho reaching up and dowm, 
Then rested long, sweet, sultry days 
Beneath the blossom’d orange trees, 
Made drowsy with the hum of bees, 
And drank in peace the south-sea 
breeze, 

Made sweet w 7 ith sweeping bough of 
bays. 

II 


Aye, she was shy, so shy at first, 
And then, ere long, not over shy. 




76 


Walker in Jlicaragua 


Yet pure of soul and proudly chare. 
No love on earth has such an eye! 
No land there is, is bless’d or curs’d 
With such a limb or grace of face, 

Or gracious form or genial air! 

In all the bleak North-land not one 
Hath been so warm of soul to me 
As coldest soul by that warm sea, 
Beneath the bright, hot-centered sun. 

III 

No lands where northern ices are 
Approach, or even dare compare 
With warm loves born beneath the 
sun— 

The one so near, the one so far! 

The one the cold, white, steady star, 
The yellow, shifting sun the one. 

IV 

I grant you fond, I grant you fair, 

I grant you honor, trust and truth, 
And years as beautiful as youth, 

And many years beneath the sun, 
And faith as fixed as any star; 

But all the North-land hath not one 
So warm of soul as sun-maids are. 

V 

I was but in my boyhood then— 
Nor knew the coarse, hard ways of 
men. 

I count my fingers over so, 

And find it years and years ago; 

But I was tall and lithe and fair, 
With rippled tide of yellow hair, 

And prone to mellowness of heart, 
While she was tawny-red like wine, 


With black hair boundless as the 
night. 

As for the rest, I learned my part, 

At least was apt, and willing quite 
To learn, to listen, and incline 
To teacher warm and wise as mine. 

VI 


O bright, bronzed maidens of the 
Sun! 

So fairer far to look upon 
Than curtains of King Solomon, 

Or Kedar’s tents, or any one, 

Or any thing beneath the Sun! 

What followed then? What has been 
done, 

And said, and writ, and read, and 
sung? 

What will be writ and read again, 
While love is life and life remain, 
While maids will heed and men have 
tongue? 

VII 

What followed then? But let that 
pass. 

I hold one picture in my heart, 

Hung curtain’d, and not any part 
Of all its blood tint ever has 
Been looked upon by any one 
Beneath the broad, all-seeing sun. 

VIII 

Love well who will, love wise who 
can, 

But love, be loved, for God is love; 
Love pure, as cherubim above; 



Walker in iStcaragua 


77 


Love maid, and hate not any man. 
Sit as sat we by orange tree, 

Beneath the broad bough and grape¬ 
vine 

Top-tangled in the tropic shine, 

Close face to face, close to the sea, 
And full of the red-centered sun, 
With sweet sea-songs upon the soul, 
Rolled melody on melody, 

As echoes of deep organ’s roll, 

And love, nor question any one. 

IX 

If God is love, is love not God? 

As high priests say, let prophets sing, 
Without reproach or reckoning; 

This much I say, knees knit to sod, 
And low voice lifted, questioning. 

X 

Let hearts be pure, let love be true. 
Let lips be luscious, love be red, 

Let earth in gold be garmented 
And tented in her tent of blue; 

Let goodly rivers glide between 
Their leaning willow walls of green, 
Let all things be filled of the sun, 

And full of warm winds of the sea, 
And I beneath my vine and tree 
Take rest, nor war with any one; 
Then I will thank God with full 
cause, 

Say this is well, is as it was. 

XI 

Let lips be red, for God has said 
Love is as one gold-garmented, 

And made them so for such a time, 


Therefore let lips be red, therefore 
Let love be ripe in ruddy prime, 

Let hope beat high, let hearts be true, 
And you be wise thereat, and you 
Drink deep and ask not any more. 

XII 

Let red lips lift, proud curl’d to 
kiss, 

And round limbs lean and lift and 
reach 

In love too passionate for speech, 
Too full of blessedness and bliss 
For anything but this and this; 

Let pure lips lean warm, kind to kiss; 
Swoon in sweet love, while all the air 
Is redolent with balm of trees, 

And mellow with the song of bees, 
While birds sit singing everywhere— 
And you will have not any more 
Than I in boyhood, by that shore 
Of olives, had in years of yore. 

XIII 

Let men unclean think things 
unclean; 

I swear tip-toed, with lifted hand, 
That we were pure as sea-wash’d 
sand, 

That not one coarse thought came 
between; 

Believe or disbelieve who will, 

Unto the pure all things are pure, 

As for the rest, love can endure 
Alike your good will or your ill. 

XIV 

Aye, she was rich in blood and 
gold— 



78 


(UalUer in J?ttaragua 


More rich in love, grown over-bold 
From its own consciousness of 
strength. 

How warm! Oh, not for any cause 
Could I declare how warm she was, 
In her brown beauty and hair’s 
length. 

XV 

We loved in the sufficient sun, 

We lived in elements of fire, 

For love is fire, not fierce desire; 

Yet lived as pure as priest and nun. 

XVI 

We lay slow rocking by the bay 
In slim canoe beneath the crags 
Thick-topp’d with palms, like sweep¬ 
ing flags 

Between us and the burning day. 

The alligator’s head lay low 
Or lifted from his rich rank fern, 

And watch’d us and the tide by turn, 
As we slow cradled to and fro. 

XVII 

And slow we cradled on till night, 
And told the old tale, overtold, 

As misers in recounting gold 
Each time to take a new delight. 

XVIII 

With her pure passion-given grace 
She drew her warm self close to me; 
And her two brown hands on my 
knee, 

And her two black eyes in my face, 


She then grew sad and guessed at ill, 
And in the future seemed to see 
With woman’s ken and prophecy, 
Yet proffer’d her devotion still. 

XIX 

And plaintive so she gave a sign, 

A token cut of virgin gold, 

That all her tribe should ever hold 
Its wearer as some one divine, 

Nor touch him with unkindly hand. 
And I in turn gave her a blade, 

A dagger, worn as well by maid 
As man, in that hot-temper’d land. 

XX 

It had a massive silver hilt, 

It had a keen and cunning blade, 

A gift of chief and comrades made 
For blood at Rivas reckless spilt. 

XXI 

“Show this,” said I, “too well ’tis 
known, 

And worth a hundred lifted spears, 
Should ill beset your sunny years; 
There is not one in Walker’s band, 
But at the sight of this alone, 

Will reach a brave and ready hand 
And make your right, or wrong, his 
own.” 

XXII 

Love while ’tis day; night cometh 
soon, 

Wherein no man or maiden may; 

Love in the strong young prime of 
day; 




alker in J^tcaragua 


79 


Drink drunk with love in ripe red 
noon, 

Red noon of love and life and sun; 
Walk in love’s light as in sunshine, 
Drink in that sun as drinking wine, 
Drink swift, nor question any one; 
For fortunes change, like man, or 
moon, 

And wane like warm full day of June. 

XXIII 

Oh Love, so fair of promises, 

Bend here thy bow, blow here thy 
kiss, 

Bend here thy bow above the storm 
But once, if only this once more! 
Comes there no patient Christ to 
save, 

Touch and reanimate thy form 
Long three days dead and in the 
grave? 

Yea, spread ye now thy silken net; 
vSince fortunes change, turn and for¬ 
get, 

Since man must fall for some sharp 
sin, 

Be thou the pit that I fall in; 

I seek no safer fall than this. 

XXIV 

You lift your face to ask of her, 
This wine-hued woman, warm sun- 
maid, 

This wine-hued woman warm as 
wine, 

vSo purely and so surely mine, 

Who loved, who dared, was not 
afraid— 


Or Princess? Priestess? Prisoner? 

I never knew or sought to know; 

I cared not what she might have been; 
I only knew she was such queen 
As only death could overthrow. 

XXV 

Aye, lover, would you love with 
zest, 

Win, hold, and hold her fast and 
well? 

Believe, believe the best the best 
Though she have singed her skirts in 
hell! 

Hold not one doubt, house just this 
thought— 

That she is all in all you sought. 

I loved, loved purely, loved pro¬ 
found, 

I raised love’s temple, round by 
round. 

I built my temple heavens high, 

Then shut the door, and she and I 
Forgot all things, all things save one, 
Beneath the hot path of the sun. 

XXVI 

I would I could forget, and yet 
I would not to my death forget. 

I reared my temple to the sky, 

That glad full moon, and laughed 
that I 

Could toy with lightning, till I found, 
Like some poor fool who toys with 
fire, 

And counts him stronger than desire, 
My temple burning to the ground. 




8o 


Walker in J^ttcaragua 


XXVII 

Aye, I had knelt, as priest might 
kneel 

Before his saint’s shrine, all that day; 
Had dared to count me strong as steel 
To stand for aye, clean, tall and 
white. 

Yet I broke in that very night, 

And stole shewbread and wine away. 

XXVIII 

I would forget that scene, that 
place, 

I would forget that pleading face, 
Yet hide it deepest in my heart, 

As coffin in the heart of earth— 

Alas! a heart so little worth— 
Locked iron doors and somber lid! 
Yea, I would have my shrine so hid, 
So sacred and so set apart, 

That only I might enter in, 

Each sleepless, penitential night, 

And, kneeling, burn my lorn love 
light 

To burn away my bitter sin. 

XXIX 

Love lifts on white wings to the 
gates 

Of Paradise and enters in: 

Lust has for wings two leaden weights 
That sink into the lake of sin. 

Lust squats, toad-like, his loathsome 
cell, 

Love seeks the light, on, on, above; 
Love is as God, as God is love, 

But lust is Lucifer in hell. 


XXX 


Ills come not singly, birds of prey 
Flock not more closely on than they; 
Ill comes disguised in many forms; 
Fair winds are but a prophecy*. 

Of foulest winds full soon to be— 
The brighter these, the blacker they; 
The brightest night has darkest day 
And brightest days bring blackest 
storms. 

XXXI 


A land-lost sea with sable bredes, 
Save where some bastions still are 
seen, 

A river stealing through the reeds, 
Dark, silent, sinuous, serpentine, 

In sullen haste toward the sun— 
Such lonesome land, such lonesome 
sea, 

Such wine-hued women at the oar, 

In silent pairs along the shore! 

But not one man in sight, not one 
To draw machete or bear a gun. 

XXXII 

A shaft of flame, a lifted torch, 
Leaps sudden from this midland sea, 
As if to light the very porch 
Of God’s high house eternally. 

It drops its ashen embers slow 
And slantwise, like belated snow, 

On granite columns, gods of stone 
Hewn ere the gods of Baal were 
known. 



Malftet in Jltcaragua 


81 


4 


XXXIII 

Some sweet brown hills, like 
Galilee, 

Group here or there this dark, still 
• sea, 

Some costly woods, mahogany, 

Red cedar, like to Lebanon, 

Broad olives, like Gethsemane; 

But silence sits all things upon, 

As in some dark, hushed house of 
death. 

You look behind, you would turn 
back, 

You-question if you yet take breath. 
The* blackness of this silent sea 
Is oiled and burnished ebony— 

The very silence turns to black. 

XXXIV 

The silence is as when your dead 
Lies waiting, candles foot and head, 
When mourners turn them slowly 
back 

With all their sad, sweet prayers 
said. 

The sea is black, the shore is black 
Below Granada’s storied steep, 

Save where red trumpet blossoms 
blow 

And trumpet, trumpet night and day, 
For brave brown soldiers far away 
In battle for this dreamful deep 
Where silent women come and go. 

XXXV 

Such wine-hued women! such soft 
eyes! 

What need one single word be said? 


A fool might talk and talk all day, 
Talk, talk and talk until he dies, 

And yet, for all his hard, loud lies, 
Will never make one inch advance, 
Will never say, year and a day, 

So much as she in one warm glance. 

XXXVI 

I see sad mothers here and there 
Sit by and braid their heavy hair, 
The while they watch their babes at 
play. 

I note no fear, I hear no sigh, 

Not even hear a baby cry; 

But Oh! Madonna, mother, bride, 
Dark mourning with your ebon tide, 
My heart is with you here today, 

As yours is with him far away. 

XXXVII 

Yet is this sea not always so: 

I’ve seen him laughing in the sun, 
Seen soft brown wavelets leap and 
flow, 

Seen opal dimples come and go, 

Seen argent billows rise and run, 

Seen fleets of gay boats lifting, borne 
Along his leaping, laughing tide 
In all their semi-savage pride. 

But list! the sea, the shore, is black 
For those who passed and came not 
back— 

He mourns because his daughters 
mourn. 

XXXVIII 

Yon solitary cone of flame 
That lifts mid-sea to light the skies? 


6 



82 


Walker m i^icaragua 


I nothing know, scarce know the 
name, 

Of yon lost, buried town that lies 
Beneath its ashes, yet I know 
The story is, a pretty town, 

With people passing up and down, 
Lies just beyond, and deep, so deep 
That never plummet breaks its sleep. 

XXXIX 

I 

And, too, the tale is we are dead 
And cast forth unto burning hell, 
While they, down there, live, laugh 
instead; 

That with them, down there, all is 
well, 

The while they dance all night, all 
day— 

While we are dead and cast in hell. 
XL 

Aye, idle talk, and yet the town 
Is there, and perfect, to this day. 
Row out, far out, and peer you down, 
A half mile down, some sultry noon, 
And see shapes passing up and down, 
As dancers dancing to a tune 
On some fair, happy day in May. 

XLI 

Aye, idle talk, and maybe these, 
The dancers, be but kelp adrift 
With undertow of under-seas— 
Strange under-seas that fall or lift 
And voiceless ever ebb and flow 
Beneath the burning crater’s plain 
Through unknown channels to the 
main; 


I only note the things I know 
And loved and lived long years ago. 

XLII 


Then came reverses to our arms; 

I saw the signal light’s alarms 
All night red-crescenting the bay. 
The foe poured down a flood next 
day 

As strong as tides when tides are high, 
And drove us to the open sea, 

In such wild haste of flight that we 
Had hardly time to arm and fly. 

XLIII 

Far tossed upon the broadest sea, 

I lifted my two hands on high, 

With wild soul plashing to the sky, 
And cried, “O more than crowns to 
me, 

Farewell at last to love and thee! ” 

I walked the deck, I kissed my 
hand 

Back to the far and fading shore, 
And bent a knee as to implore, 

Until the last dark head of land 
Slid down behind the dimpled sea. 

At last I sank in troubled sleep, 

A very child, rocked by the deep, 
Sad questioning the fate of her 
Before the cruel conqueror. 

XLIV 

The loss of comrades, power, place, 
A city walled, cool, shaded ways, 
Cost me no care at all, somehow, 




Walker in 

I only saw her sad, sweet face, 

And—I was younger then than now. 

XLV 

Red flashed the sun across the 
deck, 

Slow flapped the idle sail, and slow 
The black ship cradled to and fro. 
Afar my city lay, a speck 
Of white against a line of blue; 

Hard by, half-lounging on the deck, 
Some comrades chatted, two by two. 

I held a new-filled glass of wine, 

And with the mate talked as in play 
Of fierce events of yesterday, 

To coax his light life into mine. 

XLVI 

He jerked the wheel, as slow he 
said, 

Low laughing with averted head, 

And so half sad: “You bet, they’ll 
fight; 

They followed in canim, canoe, 

A perfect fleet, that on the blue 
Lay dancing till the mid of night. 
Would you believe! one little cuss— 
(He turned his hard head slow side- 
wise 

And ’neath his hat-rim took the 
skies)— 

“In petticoats did follow us 

The livelong night, and at the dawn 

Her boat lay rocking in the lee, 

Scarce one short pistol-shot from me. ’ ’ 
This said the mate, half mournfully, 
Then pecked at us; for he had drawn, 
By bright light heart and homely wit, 
A knot of men around the wheel, 


J&ttatagua 83 

Which he stood whirling like a reel, 
For the still ship reck’d not of it. 

XLVII 

“And where’s she now? ” one care¬ 
less said, 

With eyes slow lifting to the brine, 
Swift swept the instant far by mine, 
The bronze mate listed, shook his 
head, 

Spirted a stream of ambier wide 
Across and over the ship side, 

Jerked at the wheel and slow replied: 
“She had a dagger in her hand, 

She rose, she raised it, tried to 
stand, 

But fell, and so upset herself; 

Yet still the poor brown, pretty elf, 
Each time the long, light wave would 
toss 

And lift her form from out the sea, 
Would shake a sharp, bright blade at 
me, 

With rich hilt chased a cunning cross. 
At last she sank, but still the same 
She shook her dagger in the air, 

As if to still defy or dare, 

And sinking seemed to call your 
name.” 

XLVIII 

I let the wine glass crashing fall, 

I rushed across the deck, and all 
The sea I swept and swept again, 
With lifted hand, with eye and glass, 
But all was idle and in vain. 

I saw a red-billed sea bird pass, 

A petrel sweeping ’round and ’round, 
I heard the far, white sea-surf sound, 




8 4 


Walker tit JJicaragua 


But no sign could I hear or see 
Of one so more than all to me. 

XLIX 

I cursed the ship, the shore, the sea, 
The brave brown mate, the bearded 
men; 

I had a fever then, and then 
Ship, shore and sea were one to me: 
And weeks we on the dead waves lay, 
And I more truly dead than they. 

L 

At last some rested on an isle; 

The few strong-breasted, with a smile, 
Returning to the hostile shore, 

Scarce counting of the pain or cost, 
Scarce recking if they won or lost; 
They sought but action, asked no 
more; 

They counted life but as a game, 
With full per cent against them, and 
Staked all upon a single hand, 

And lost or won, content the same. 

LI 

I never saw my chief again, 

I never sought again the shore, 

Or saw the wood-walled city more. 

I could not bear the more than pain 
At sight of blossom’d orange trees, 

Or blended song of birds and bees, 
The sweeping shadows of the palm 
Or spicy breath of bay and balm. 

LII 

And, striving to forget the while, 

I wandered through a dreary isle, 


Here black with juniper, and there 
Made white with goats in shaggy 
coats, 

The only things that anywhere 
We found with life in all the land, 
Save birds that ran, long-bill’d and 
brown, 

Long-legg’d and still as shadows 
are, 

Like dancing shadows, up and down 
The sea-rim on the swelt’ring sand. 

LIII 

The warm sea laid his dimpled face, 
With all his white locks smoothed in 
place, 

As if asleep against the land; 

Great turtles slept upon his breast, 

As thick as eggs in any nest; 

I could have touched them with my 
hand. 

LIV 

I would some things were dead and 
hid, 

Well dead and buried deep as hell, 
With recollection dead as well, 

And resurrection God-forbid. 

They irk me with their weary spell 
Of fascination, eye to eye, 

And hot, mesmeric, serpent-hiss, 
Through all the dull, eternal days. 

Let them turn by, go on their ways, 
Let them depart or let me die; 

For life is but a beggar’s lie, 

And as for death, I grin at it; 

I do not care one whiff or whit 
Whether it be or that or this. 




Walker tn Nicaragua 


LV 

I give my hand; the world is wide; 
Then farewell, memories of yore! 
Between us let strife be no more; 
Turn as you choose to either side; 
Say Fare-you-well, shake hands and 
say— 

Speak fair, and say with stately grace, 
Hand clutching hand, face bent to 
face— 

Farewell, forever and a day! 

LVI 

O passion-toss’d and piteous past, 
Part now, part well, part wide apart, 
As ever ships on ocean slid 
Down, down the sea, hull, sail and 
mast; 

And in the album of your heart 
Let hide the pictures of your face, 
With other pictures in their place, 
Slid over, like a coffin’s lid. 

LVII 

The days and grass grow long to¬ 
gether; 

They now fell short and crisp again, 
And all the fair face of the main 
Grew dark and wrinkled as the 
weather. 

Through all the summer sun’s decline 
Fell news of triumphs and defeats, 

Of hard advances, hot retreats— 

Then days and days and not a line. 

LVIII 

At last one night they came. I 
knew, 


85 

Ere yet the boat had touched the 
land, 

That all was lost; they were so few 
I near could count them on one hand; 
But he, the leader, led no more. 

The proud chief still disdained to fly, 
But like one wrecked, clung to the 
shore, 

And struggled on, and struggling fell 
From power to a prison cell, 

And only left that cell to die. 

LIX 

Aly recollection, like a ghost, 

Goes from this sea to that sea-side, 
Goes and returns, as turns the tide, 
Then turns again unto the coast. 

I know not which I mourn the most, 
My chief or my unwedded wife. 

The one was as the lordly sun, 

To joy in, bask in and admire; 

The twilight star was as the one 
To love, to look to and desire, 

And both a part of my young life. 

LX 

4# * 1 -* . f. 

^ 

Years after, sheltered from the sun 
Beneath a Sacramento bay, 

A black Muchacho by me lay 
Along the long grass crisp and dun, 
His brown mule browsing by his side, 
And told with all a peon’s pride 
How he once fought; how long and 
well, 

Brave breast to breast, red hand to 
hand, 

Against a foe for his fair land, 

And how the fierce invader fell; 





86 


Walker in Nicaragua 


And, artless, told me how he died; 
How walked he from the prison-wall, 
Serene, prince-like, as for parade, 
And made no note of man or maid, 
But gazed out calmly over all— 

How looked he far, half paused, and 
then 

Above the mottled sea of men 
Slow kissed his thin hand to the sun; 
Then smiled so proudly none had 
known 

But he was stepping to a throne. 

LXI 

A nude brown beggar Peon child, 
Encouraged as the captive smiled, 
Looked up, half scared, half pitying; 
He stopped, he caught it from the 
sand, 

Put bright coins in its two brown 
hands, 

Then strode on like another king. 
LXII 

Two deep, a musket’s length they 
stood 

Afront, in sandals, grim and dun 
As death and darkness wove in one, 
Their thick lips thirsting for his blood. 
He took each black hand, one by one, 
And, bowing with a patient grace, 
Forgave them all and took his place. 

LXIII 

He bared his broad brow 
pleasantly, 

Gave one long, last look to the sky, 


The white-winged clouds that hurried 

by, 

The olive hills in orange hue; 

A last list to the cockatoo 
That hung by beak from mango- 
bough 

Hard by and hung and cried as 
though 

He never was to call again, 

Hung all red-crowned and robed in 
green, 

With belts of gold and blue be¬ 
tween.— 

■I' ^ *1» H* ^ 

v*> a |' ■! III 

^ ^ ^ 

A bow, a touch of heart, a pall 
Of purple smoke, a crash, a thud, 

A warrior’s raiment rolled in blood, 

A face in dust and—that was all. 

\ 

Success had made him more than 
king; 

Defeat made him the vilest thing 
In name, contempt or hate can bring; 
So much the leaden dice of war 
Do make or mar of character. 

LXIV 

Speak ill who will of him, he died 
In all disgrace, say of the dead 
His heart was black, his hands were 
red— 

Say this much and be satisfied; 

Gloat over it all undenied. 

I simply say he was my friend 
When strong of hand and fair of 
fame: 

Dead and disgraced, I stand the same 
To him, and so shall to the end. 




Walker in 

LXV 

I lay this crude wreath on his dust, 
Inwove with sad, sweet memories 
Recall’d here by these colder seas. 

I leave the wild bird with his trust, 

To sing and say him nothing wrong; 

I wake no rivalry of song. 

LXVI 

He lies low in the level’d sand, 
Unshelter’d from the tropic sun, 

And now, of all he knew, not one 
Will speak him fair in that far land. 
Perhaps 'twas this that made me 
seek, 

Disguised, his grave one winter-tide, 

A weakness for the weaker side, 

A siding with the helpless weak. 

LXVI I 

His warm Hondurian seas are 
warm, 

Warm to the heart, warm all the time; 
Huge sea-beasts wallow in their slime 
And slide, claw foot and serpent form, 
Slow down the bank, and bellow deep 
And pitiful, as if it were 
A very pain to even stir, 

So close akin to death they keep. 

LXVIII 

The low sea bank is worn and torn, 
All things seem old, so very old; 

All things are gray with moss and 
mould, 

The very seas seem old and worn. 


Jticaragua 87 

Life scarce bides here in any form, 
The very winds wake not nor say, 
But sleep all night and sleep all day 
Nor even dream of stress or storm. 

LXIX 

The Carib sea comes in so slow! 

It stays and stays, as loath to go, 

A sense of death is in the air, 

A sense of listless, dull despair, 

As if Truxillo, land and tide, 

And all things, died when Walker 
died. 

LXX 

A palm not far held out a hand, 
Hard by a long green bamboo swung, 
And bent like some great bow un¬ 
strung, 

And quiver’d like a willow wand; 
Perched on its fruit that crooked 
hang, 

Beneath a broad banana’s leaf, 

A bird in rainbow splendor sang 
A low, sad song of temper’d grief. 

LXXI 

No sod, no sign, no cross nor stone, 
But at his side a cactus green 
Upheld its lances long and keen; 

It stood in sacred sands alone, 
Flat-palmed and fierce with lifted 
spears; 

One bloom of crimson crowned its 
head, 

A drop of blood, so bright, so red, 
Yet redolent as roses’ tears. 



88 


®ale of tfje ®all alcalde 


LXXII 

In my left hand I held a shell, 

All rosy-lipp’d and pearly red; 

I laid it by his lowly bed, 

For he did love so passing well 
The grand songs of his solemn sea. 

O shell! sing well, wild, with a will, 
When storms blow loud and birds be 
still, 

The wildest sea-song known to thee! 


LXXIII 

I said some things with folded 
hands, 

Soft whisper’d in the dim sea-sound, 
And eyes held humbly to the ground, 
And frail knees sunken in the sands. 
He had done more than this for me, 
And yet I could not well do more; 

I turned me down the olive shore, 
And set a sad face to the sea. 


THE TALE OF THE TALL ALCALDE 


Shadows that shroud the tomorrow, 
Clists from the life that's within, 
Traces of pain and of sorrow, 

A nd maybe a trace of sin, 
Reachings for God in the darkness, 

A nd for—what should have been. 

Stains from the gall and the worm¬ 
wood, 

Memories bitter like myrrh, 

A sad brown face in a fir wood, 
Blotches of heart's blood here, 

But never the sound of a wailing, 
Never the sign of a tear. 

Where mountains repose in their blue¬ 
ness, 

Where the sun first lands in his 
newness, 

And marshals his beams and his 
lances, 

Ere down to the vale he advances 

With visor erect, and rides swiftly 

On the terrible night in his way, 

And slays him, and, dauntless and 
deftly, 


Hews out the beautiful day 
With his flashing sword of silver,— 
Lay nestled the town of Renalda, 

Far famed for its stately Alcalde, 

The iron judge of the mountain 
mine, 

With heart like the heart of woman, 
Humanity more than human;— 

Far famed for its gold and silver, 
Fair maids and its mountain wine. 

****** 

The feast was full and the guests 
afire, 

The shaven priest and the portly 
squire, 

The solemn judge and the smiling 
dandy, 

The duke and the don and the 
commandante, 

All, save one, shouted or sang divine, 
Sailing in one great sea of wine; 

Till roused, red-crested knight 
Chanticleer 

Answer’d and echo’d their song and 
cheer. 




&!)e ®ale of tfjc ®all jUlcalbe 


89 


Seme boasted of broil, encounter 
in battle, 

Some boasted of maidens most clever¬ 
ly won, 

Boasted of duels most valiantly 
done, 

Of leagues of land and of herds of 
cattle, 

These men at the feast up in fair 
Renalda. 

All boasted but one, the calm Al¬ 
calde : 

Though hard they press’d from first 
of the feast, 

Press’d commandante, press’d poet 
and priest, 

And steadily still an attorney press’d, 
With lifted glass and his face aglow, 
Heedless of host and careless of 
guest— 

“A tale! the tale of your life, so 
ho! 

For not one man in all Mexico 
Can trace your history two decade. ’ ’ 
A hand on the rude one’s lip was 
laid: 

“Sacred, my son,” the priest went 
on, 

“Sacred the secrets of every one, 
Inviolate as an altar-stone. 

Yet what in the life of one who must 
Have lived a life that is half divine— 
Have been so pure to be so just, 
What can there be, O advocate, 

In the life of one so desolate 
Of luck with matron, or love with 
maid, 

Midnight revel or escapade, 

To stir the wonder of men at wine? 
But should the Alcalde choose, you 
know,”— 


(And here his voice fell soft and low, 
As he set his wine-horn in its place. 
And look’d in the judge’s care-worn 
face)— 

“To weave us a tale that points a 
moral 

Out of his vivid imagination, 

Of lass or of love, or lover’s quarrel, 
Naught of his fame or name or 
station 

Shall lose in luster by its relation.” 

Softly the judge set down his 
horn, 

Kindly look’d on the priest all 
shorn, 

And gazed in the eyes of the advocate 
With a touch of pity, but none of 
hate; 

Then look’d he down in the brimming 
horn, 

Half defiant and half forlorn. 

Was it a tear? Was it a sigh? 

Was it a glance of the priest’s black 
eye? 

Or was it the drunken revel-cry 
That smote the rock of his frozen 
heart 

And forced his pallid lips apart? 

Or was it the weakness like to 
woman 

Yearning for sympathy 
Through the dark years, 

Spurning the secrecy, 

Burning for tears, 

Proving him human,— 

As he said to the men of the silver 
mine, 

With their eyes held up as to one 
divine, 




90 


^i)e Calc of tfic trail aicalbc 


With his eyes held down to his un¬ 
touch’d wine: 

“It might have been where moon¬ 
beams kneel 

At night beside some rugged steep; 

It might have been where breakers 
reel, 

Or mild waves cradle men to sleep; 

It might have been in peaceful life, 
Or mad tumult and storm and 
strife, 

I drew my breath; it matters not. 

A silvered head, a sweetest cot, 

A sea of tamarack and pine, 

A peaceful stream, a balmy clime, 

A cloudless sky, a sister’s smile, 

A mother’s love that sturdy Time 
Has strengthen’d as he strengthens 
wine, 

Are mine, are with me all the while, 
Are hung in memory’s sounding 
halls, 

Are graven on her glowing walls. 

But rage, nor rack, nor wrath of 
man, 

Nor prayer of priest, nor price, nor 
ban 

Can wring from me their place or 
name, 

Or why, or when, or whence I came; 
Or why I left that childhood home, 

A child of form yet old of soul, 

And sought the wilds where tempests 
roll 

O’er snow peaks white as driven 
foam. 

“Mistaken and misunderstood, 

I sought a deeper wild and wood. 

A girlish form, a childish face, 


A w r ild waif drifting from place to 
place. 

“Oh for the skies of rolling blue, 
The balmy hours when lovers woo, 
When the moon is doubled as in 
desire, 

And the lone bird cries in his crest of 
fire, 

Like vespers calling the soul to bliss 
In the blessed love of the life above, 
Ere it has taken the stains of this! 

“ The world afar, yet at my feet, 
Went steadily and sternly on; 

I almost fancied I could meet 
The crush and bustle of the street, 
When from my mountain I look’d 
down. 

And deep down in the canon’s 
mouth 

The long-tom ran and pick-ax rang, 
And pack-trains coming from the 
south 

Went stringing round the mountain 
high 

In long gray lines, as wild geese fly, 
While mul’teers shouted hoarse and 
high, 

And dusty, dusky, mul’teers sang— 
‘Senora with the liquid eye! 

No floods can ever quench the flame, 
Or frozen snows my passion tame, 

O Juanna with the coalblack eye! 

O senorita, b’.de a bye!’ 

“Environed by a mountain wall, 
That caped in snowy turrets stood; 

So fierce, so terrible, so tall, 

It never yet had been defiled 
By track or trail, save by the wild 




®!je ®ale of tfje ®all gllcaltie 


9 i 


Free children of the wildest wood; 

An unkiss’d virgin at my feet, 

Lay my pure, hallow’d, dreamy vale, 
Where breathed the essence of my 
tale; 

Lone dimple in the mountain’s face, 
Lone Eden in a boundless waste— 
ft lay so beautiful! so sweet! 

“There in the sun’s decline I 
stood 

By God’s form wrought in pink and 
pearl, 

My peerless, dark-eyed Indian girl; 
And gazed out from a fringe of 
wood, 

With full-fed soul and feasting 
eyes, 

Upon an earthly paradise. 

Inclining to the south it lay, 

And long league’s southward roll’d 
away, 

Until the sable-feather’d pines 
And tangled boughs and amorous 
vines 

Closed like besiegers on the scene, 
The while the stream that inter¬ 
twined 

Had barely room to flow between. 

It was unlike all other streams, 

Save those seen in sweet summer 
dreams ; 

For sleeping in its bed of snow, 

Nor rock or stone was ever known, 
But only shining, shifting sands, 
Forever sifted by unseen hands. 

It curved, it bent like Indian bow, 
And like an arrow darted through, 
Yet uttered not a sound nor breath, 
Nor broke a ripple from the start; 

It was as swift, as still as death, 


Yet was so clear, so pure, so sweet, 

It wound its way into your heart 
As through the grasses at your feet. 

“Once through the tall untangled 
grass, 

I saw two black bears careless pass, 
And in the twilight turn to play; 

I caught my rifle to my face, 

She raised her hand with quiet 
grace 

And said: ‘Not so, for us the day, 
The night belongs to such as they. ’ ” 

“And then from out the shadow’d 
wood 

The antler’d deer came stalking 
down 

In half a shot of where I stood; 

Then stopp’d and stamp’d im¬ 
patiently, 

Then shook his head and antlers 
high, 

And then his keen horns backward 
threw 

Upon his shoulders broad and 
brown, 

And thrust his muzzle in the air, 
Snuff’d proudly; then a blast he 
blew 

As if to say: ‘No danger there,’ 

And then from out the sable wood 
His mate and two sweet dappled 
fawns 

Stole forth, and by the monarch 
stood, 

Such bronzes, as on kingly lawns; 

Or seen in picture, read in tale. 

Then he, as if to reassure 

The timid, trembling and demure, 

Again his antlers backward threw, 





92 


Wje ®ale of tfje trail alcalde 


Again a blast defiant blew, 

Then led them proudly down the 
vale. 

“I watch’d the forms of darkness 
come 

Slow stealing from their sylvan 
home, 

And pierce the sunlight drooping 
low 

And weary, as if loth to go. 

Night stain’d the lances as he bled, 
And, bleeding and pursued, he fled 
Across the vale into the wood. 

I saw the tall grass bend its head 
Beneath the stately martial tread 
Of Shades, pursuer and pursued. 

“‘ Behold the clouds,’ Winnema 
said, 

‘All purple with the blood of day; 
The night has conquer’d in the fray, 
The shadows live, and light is dead.' 

“She turn’d to Shasta gracefully, 
Around whose hoar and mighty head 
Still roll’d a sunset sea of red, 

While troops of clouds a space 
below 

Were drifting wearily and slow, 

As seeking shelter for the night 
Like weary sea-birds in their flight; 
Then curved her right arm gracefully 
Above her brow, and bow’d her 
knee, 

And chanted in an unknown tongue 
Words sweeter than were ever sung. 

“ ‘And what means this?’ I gently 
said. 

‘I prayed to God, the Yopitone, 


Who dwells on yonder snowy throne,' 
She softly said with drooping head; 

‘I bow’d to God. He heard my 
prayer, 

I felt his warm breath in my hair, 

He heard me all my wishes tell, 

For God is good, and all is well.’ 

“The dappled and the dimpled 
skies, 

The timid stars, the spotted moon, 
All smiled as sweet as sun at noon. 
Her eyes were like the rabbit’s eyes, 
Her mien, her manner, just as mild, 
And though a savage war-chief’s 
child, 

vShe would not harm the lowliest 
worm. 

And, though her beaded foot was 
firm, 

And though her airy step was true, 
She would not crush a drop of dew. 

“Her love was deeper than the 
sea, 

And stronger than the tidal rise, 

And clung in all its strength to me. 

A face like hers is never seen 
This side the gates of paradise, 
vSave in some Indian Summer scene, 
And then none ever sees it twice— 

Is seen but once, and seen no more, 
Seen but to tempt the skeptic soul, 
And show a sample of the whole 
That Heaven has in store. 

“You might have plucked beams 
from the moon, 

Or torn the shadow from the pine 
When on its dial track at noon, 

But not have parted us one hour, 



®lje ©ale of tfje ©all <aicall>c 


93 


She was so wholly, truly mine. 

And life was one unbroken dream 
Of purest bliss and calm delight, 

A flow’ry-shored, untroubled stream 
Of sun and song, of shade and bower 
A full-moon’d serenading night. 

“Sweet melodies were in the air, 
And tame birds caroll’d everywhere. 

I listened to the lisping grove 
And cooing pink-eyed turtle dove, 

I loved her with the holiest love; 
Believing with a brave belief 
That everything beneath the skies 
Was beautiful and born to love, 

That man had but to love, believe, 
And earth would be a paradise 
As beautiful as that above. 

My goddess, Beauty, I adored, 
Devoutly, fervid, her alone; 

My Priestess, Love, unceasing 
pour’d 

Pure incense on her altar-stone. 

“I carved my name in coarse 
design 

Once on a birch down by the way, 

At which she gazed, as she would 
say, 

'What does this say? What is this 
sign?’ 

And when I gaily said, ‘Some day 
Some one will come and read my 
name, 

And I will live in song and fame, 
Entwined with many a mountain 
tale, 

As he who first found this sweet 
vale, 

And they will give the place my 
name,’ 


She was most sad, and troubled 
much, 

And looked in silence far away; 

Then started trembling from my 
touch, 

And when she turn’d her face again, 

I read unutterable pain. 

' ‘ At last she answered through her 
tears, 

‘Ah! yes; this, too, foretells my 
fears: 

Yes, they will come—my race must 
go 

As fades a vernal fall of snow; 

And you be known, and I forgot 
Like these brown leaves that rust and 
rot 

Beneath my feet; and it is well: 

I do not seek to thrust my name 
On those who here, hereafter, dwell, 
Because I have before them dwelt; 
They too will have their tales to tell, 
They too will have their time and 
fame. 

“ ‘Yes, they will come, come even 
now; 

The dim ghosts on yon mountain’s 
brow, 

Gray Fathers of my tribe and race, 
Do beckon to us from their place, 
And hurl red arrows through the air 
At night, to bid our braves beware. 

A footprint by the clear McCloud, 
Unlike aught ever seen before, 

Is seen. The crash of rifles loud, 

Is heard along its farther shore.’ 

• ••••• 

“What tall and tawny men were 
these. 



94 


®f)e ®ale of tfjc ®all Slcalbc 


As somber, silent, as the trees 
They moved among! and sad some 
way 

With temper’d sadness, ever they,— 
Yet not with sorrow born of fear. 
The shadow of their destinies 
They saw approaching year by year, 
And murmur’d not. They saw the 
sun 

Go down; they saw the peaceful 
moon 

Move on in silence to her rest, 

Saw white streams winding to the 
west; 

And thus they knew that oversoon, 
Somehow, somewhere, for every one 
Was rest beyond the setting sun. 
They knew not, never dream’d of 
doubt, 

But turn’d to death as to a sleep, 

And died with eager hands held out 
To reaching hands beyond the 
deep,— 

And died with choicest bow at hand, 
And quiver full, and arrow drawn 
For use, when sweet tomorrow’s 
dawn 

Should waken in the Spirit Land. 

“What wonder that I linger’d 
there 

With Nature’s children! Could I 
part 

With those that met me heart to 
heart, 

And made me welcome, spoke me 
fair, 

Were first of all that understood 
My waywardness from others’ ways, 
My worship of the true and good, 
And earnest love of Nature’s God? 


Go court the mountains in the 
clouds, 

And clashing thunder, and the 
shrouds 

Of tempests, and eternal shocks, 

And fast and pray as one of old 
In earnestness, and ye shall hold 
The mysteries; shall hold the rod 
That passes seas, that smites the 
rocks 

Where streams of melody and song 
Shall run as white streams rush and 
flow 

Down from the mountains’ crests of 
snow, 

Forever, to a thirsting throng. 

• ••••• 

“Between the white man and the 
red 

There lies no neutral, halfway 
ground. 

I heard afar the thunder sound 
That soon should burst above my 
head, 

And made my choice; I laid my 
plan, 

And childlike chose the weaker side; 
And ever have, and ever will, 

While -might is wrong and wrongs 
remain, 

As careless of the world as I 
Am careless of a cloudless sky. 

With wayward and romantic joy 
I gave my pledge like any boy, 

But kept my promise like a man, 

And lost; yet with the lesson still 
Would gladly do the same again. 

“ ‘They come! they come! the pale- 

face come!’ 




®f)e ®ale of ttje fCall iUltalbe 


95 


The chieftain shouted where he 
stood, 

Sharp watching at the margin wood, 
And gave the war-whoop’s treble 

yell, 

That like a knell on fond hearts 
fell 

Far watching from my rocky home. 

“No nodding plumes or banners 
fair 

Unfurl’d or fretted through the air; 
No screaming fife or rolling drum 
Did challenge brave of soul to come; 
But, silent, sinew-bows were strung, 
And, sudden, heavy quivers hung 
And, swiftly, to the battle sprung 
Tall painted braves with tufted hair, 
Like death-black banners in the air. 

“And long they fought, and firm 
and well 

And silent fought, and silent fell, 
Save when they gave the fearful 
yell 

Of death, defiance, or of hate. 

But what were feathered flints to 
fate? 

And what were yells to seething 
lead? 

And what the few and untrained 
feet 

To troops that came with martial 
tread, 

And moved by wood and hill and 
stream 

As thick as people in a street, 

As strange as spirits in a dream? 

“From pine and poplar, here and 
there, 


A cloud, a flash, a crash, a thud, 

A warrior’s garments roll’d in blood, 
A yell that rent the mountain air 
Of fierce defiance and despair, 

Told all who fell, and when and 
where. 

Then tighter drew the coils around, 
And closer grew the battle-ground, 
And fewer feather’d arrows fell, 

And fainter grew the battle yell, 
Until upon that hill was heard 
The short, sharp whistle of the bird: 
Until that blood-soaked battle hill 
Was still as death, so more than still. 

“The calm, that cometh after all, 
Look’d sweetly down at shut of 
day, 

Where friend and foe commingled lay 
Like leaves of forest as they fall. 

Afar the somber mountains frown’d, 
Here tall pines wheel’d their shadows 
round, 

Like long, slim fingers of a hand 
That sadly pointed out the dead. 
Like some broad shield high over¬ 
head 

The great white moon led on and on, 
As leading to the better land. 

All night I heard black cricket’s 
trill, 

A night-bird calling from the hill— 
The place was so profoundly still. 

“The mighty chief at last was 
down, 

A broken gate of brass and pride! 

His hair all dust, and this his crown! 
His firm lips were compress’d in 
hate 

To foes, yet all content with fate; 



®fje ®alc of tfjc Call Sltalfce 


96 

While, circled round him thick, the 
foe 

Had folded hands in dust, and 
died. 

His tomahawk lay at his side, 

All blood, beside his broken bow. 

One arm stretch’d out, still over¬ 
bold, 

One hand half doubled hid in dust, 
And clutch’d the earth, as if to hold 
His hunting grounds still in his 
trust. 

“Here tall grass bow’d its tassel’d 
head 

In dewy tears above the dead, 

And there they lay in crook’d fern, 
That waved and wept above by 
turn: 

And further on, by somber trees, 
They lay, wild heroes of wild deeds, 
In shrouds alone of weeping weeds, 
Bound in a never-to-be-broken peace. 

“No trust that day had been 
betrayed; 

Not one had falter’d, not one brave 
Survived the fearful struggle, save 
One—save I the renegade, 

The red man’s friend, and—they 
held me so 

For this alone—the white man’s foe. 

“They bore me bound for many a 
day 

Through fen and wild, by foamy 
flood, 

From my dear mountains far away, 
Where an adobe prison stood 
Beside a sultry, sullen town, 

With iron eyes and stony frown; 


And in a dark and narrow cell, 

So hot it almost took my breath, 
And seem’d but some outpost of 
hell, 

They thrust me—as if I had been 
A monster, in a monster’s den. 

I cried aloud, I courted death, 

I call’d unto a strip of sky, 

The only thing beyond my cell 
That I could see, but no reply 
Came but the echo of my breath. 

I paced—how long I cannot tell— 
My reason fail’d, I knew no more, 
And swooning, fell upon the floor. 
Then months went on, till deep one 
night, 

When long thin bars of cool moon¬ 
light 

Lay shimmering along the floor, 

My senses came to me once more. 

“My eyes look’d full into her 
eyes— 

Into her soul so true and tried, 

I thought myself in paradise, 

And wonder’d when she too had 
died. 

And then I saw the striped light 
That struggled past the prison bar, 
And in an instant, at the sight, 

My sinking soul fell just as far 
As could a star loosed by a jar 
From out the setting in a ring, 

The purpled semi-circled ring 
That seems to circle us at night. 

“She saw my senses had return’d, 
Then swift to press my pallid face— 
Then, as if spurn’d, she sudden 
turn’d 

Her sweet face to the prison wall; 





®fje ®ale of tfjc ®all gllcaltie 


97 


Her bosom rose, her hot tears fell 
Fast as drip moss-stones in a well, 
And then, as if subduing all 
In one strong struggle of the soul 
Be what they were of vows or fears, 
With kisses and hot tender tears, 
There in the deadly, loathsome place, 
She bathed my pale and piteous 
face. 

“I was so weak I could not speak 
Or press my pale lips to her cheek; 

I only looked my wish to share 
The secret of her presence there. 
Then looking through her falling 
hair, 

She press’d her finger to her lips, 
More sweet than sweets the brown 
bee sips. 

More sad than any grief untold, 
More silent than the milk-white 
moon, 

She turned away. I heard unfold 
An iron door, and she was gone. 

“At last, one midnight, I was free; 
Again I felt the liquid air 
Around my hot brow like a sea, 
Sweet as my dear Madonna’s prayer, 
Or benedictions on the soul; 

Pure air, which God gives free to 
all, 

Again I breathed without control— 
Pure air that man would fain en¬ 
thrall ; 

God’s air, which man hath seized and 
sold 

Unto his fellow-man for gold. 

“I bow’d down to the bended sky, 
I toss’d my two thin hands on high, 


I call’d unto the crooked moon, 

I shouted to the shining stars, 

With breath and rapture uncon- 
troll’d, 

Like some wild school-boy loosed at 
noon, 

Or comrade coming from the wars, 
Hailing his companiers of old. 

“Short time for shouting or 
delay,— 

The cock is shrill, the east is gray, 
Pursuit is made, we must away. 

They cast me on a sinewy steed, 

And bid me look to girth and 
guide— 

A caution of but little need. 

I dash the iron in his side, 

Swift as the shooting stars I ride; 

I turn, I see, to my dismay, 

A silent rider red as they; 

I glance again—it is my bride, 

My love, my life, rides at my side. 

“ By gulch and gorge and brake and 
all, 

Swift as the shining meteors fall, 

We fly, and never sound nor word 
But ringing mustang hoof is heard, 
And limbs of steel and lungs of 
steam 

Could not be stronger than theirs 
seem. 

Grandly as in some joyous dream, 
League on league, and hour on hour, 
Far, far from keen pursuit, or power 
Of sheriff or bailiff, high or low, 

Into the bristling hills we go. 

“ Into the tumbled, clear McCloud, 
White as the foldings of a shroud; 


7 



9 8 


®fje ®ale of tfjc Call Slcal&e 


We dash into the dashing stream, 

We breast the tide, we drop the rein, 
We clutch the streaming, tangled 
mane— 

And yet the rider at my side 
Has never look nor word replied. 

“Out in its foam, its rush, its roar, 
Breasting away to the farther shore; 
Steadily, bravely, gain’d at last, 
Gain’d where never a dastard foe 
Has dared to come, or friend to go. 
Pursuit is baffled and danger pass’d. 

“Under an oak whose wide arms 
were 

Lifting aloft, as if in prayer, 

Under an oak where the shining 
moon 

Like feather’d snow in a winter 
noon 

Quiver’d, sifted, and drifted down 
In spars and bars on her shoulders 
brown: 

And yet she was as silent still 
As block stones toppled from the 
Hill— 

Great basalt blocks that near us lay, 
Deep nestled in the grass untrod 
By aught save wild beasts of the 
wood— 

Great, massive, squared, and chisel’d 
stone, 

Like columns that had toppled down 
From temple dome or tower crown, 
Along some drifted, silent way 
Of desolate and desert town 
Built by the children of the sun. 

And I in silence sat on one, 

And she stood gazing far away 


To where her childhood forests lay, 
Still as the stone I sat upon. 

“I sought to catch her to my 
breast 

And charm her from her silent 
mood; 

She shrank as if a beam, a breath, 
Then silently before me stood, 

Still, coldly, as the kiss of death, 

Her face was darker than a pall, 

Her presence was so proudly tall, 

I would have started from the stone 
Where I sat gazing up at her, 

As from a form to earth unknown, 
Had I possess’d the power to stir. 

“‘O touch me not, no more, no 
more; 

’Tis past, and my sweet dream is 
o’er. 

Impure! Impure! Impure!’ she 
cried, 

In words as sweetly, weirdly wild 
As mingling of a rippled tide, 

And music on the waters spill’d. . . . 
‘But you are free. Fly! Fly alone. 
Yes, you will win another bride 
In some far clime where nought is 
known 

Of all that you have won or lost, 

Or what your liberty has cost; 

Will win you name, and place, and 
power, 

And ne’er recall this face, this hour, 
Save in some secret, deep regret, 
Which I forgive and you’ll forget. 
Your destiny will lead you on 
Where, open’d wide to welcome you, 
Rich, ardent hearts and bosoms are, 
And snowy arms, more purely fair. 




®fje ®ale of tfje ©all iUltalbc 


99 


And breasts—who dare say breasts 
more true? 

“ ‘They said you had deserted me, 
Had rued you of your wood and 

wild. 

I knew, I knew it could not be, 

I trusted as a trusting child. 

I cross’d yon mountains bleak and 
high 

That curve their rough backs to the 
sky, 

I rode the white-maned mountain 
flood, 

And track’d for weeks the trackless 
wood. 

The good God led me, as before, 

And brought me to your prison-door. 

“ ‘ That madden’d call! that fever’d 
moan! 

I heard you in the midnight call 
My own name through the massive 
wall, 

In my sweet mountain-tongue and 
tone— 

And yet you call’d so feebly wild, 

I near mistook you for a child. 

“‘The keeper with his clinking 
keys 

I sought, implored upon my knees 
That I might see you, feel your 
breath, 

Your brow, or breathe you low 
replies 

Of comfort in your lonely death. 

His red face shone, his redder eyes 
Were like a fiend’s that feeds on lies. 
Again I heard your feeble moan, 

I cried—unto a heart of stone. 


Ah! why the hateful horrors tell? 
Enough! I crept into your cell. 

“ ‘I nursed you, lured you back to 
life, 

And when you knew, and called me 
wife 

And love, with pale lips rife 
With love and feeble loveliness, 

I turn’d away, I hid my face, 

In mad reproach and such distress, 

In dust down in that loathsome 
place. 

“ ‘And then I vow’d a solemn vow 
That you should live, live and be 
free. 

And you have lived—are free; and 
now 

Too slow yon red sun comes to see 
My life or death, or me again. 

Oh, death! the peril and the pain 
I have endured! the dark, dark 
stain 

That I did take on my fair soul, 

All, all to save you, make you free, 
Are more than mortal can endure; 
But flame can make the foulest 
pure. 

“‘Behold this finished funeral 
pyre, 

All ready for the form and fire, 
Which these, my own hands, did 
prepare 

For this last night; then lay me 
there. 

I would not hide me from my God 
Beneath the cold and sullen sod, 

But, wrapped in fiery shining shroud, 
Ascend to Him, a wreathing cloud.’ 





100 


W\)t Walt of tfte Wall glcalbe 


“She paused, she turn’d, she lean'd 
apace 

Her glance and half-regretting face, 
As if to yield herself to me; 

And then she cried, ‘It cannot be, 
For I have vow’d a solemn vow, 
And, God help me to keep it now!’ 

“I stood with arms extended 
wide 

To catch her to my burning breast; 
She caught a dagger from her side 
And, ere I knew to stir or start, 

She plunged it in her bursting heart, 
And fell into my arms and died— 
Died as my soul to hers was press’d. 
Died as I held her to my breast, 

Died without one word or moan, 

And left me with my dead—alone. 

“I laid her warm upon the pile, 
And underneath the lisping oak 
I watch’d the columns of dark 
smoke 

Embrace her sweet lips, with a 
smile 

Of frenzied fierceness, while there 
came 

A gleaming column of red flame, 
That grew a grander monument 
Above her nameless noble mould 
Than ever bronze or marble lent 
To king or conqueror of old. 

“It seized her in its hot embrace. 
And leapt as if to reach the stars. 
Then looking up I saw a face 
So saintly and so sweetly fair, 

So sad, so pitying, and so pure, 

I nigh forgot the prison bars, 


And for one instant, one alone, 

I felt I could forgive, endure. 

“I laid a circlet of white stone, 
And left her ashes there alone. 

Years after, years of storm and pain, 
I sought that sacred ground again. 

I saw the circle of white stone 
With tall, wild grasses overgrown. 

I did expect, I know not why, 

From out her sacred dust to find 
Wild pinks and daisies blooming 
fair; 

And when I did not find them there 
I almost deem’d her God unkind, 
Less careful of her dust than I. 

“But why the dreary tale pro¬ 
long? 

And deem you I confess’d me wrong, 
That I did bend a patient knee 
To all the deep wrongs done to me? 
That I, because the prison mould 
Was on my brow, and all its chill 
Was in my heart as chill as night, 
Till soul and body both were cold, 
Did curb my free-born mountain will 
And sacrifice my sense of right? 

“No! no! and had they come that 
day 

While I with hands and garments 
red 

Stood by her pleading, patient clay, 
The one lone watcher by my dead, 
With cross-hilt dagger in my hand, 
And offer’d me my life and all 
Of titles, power, or of place, 

I should have spat them in the face, 
And spurn’d them every one. 

I live as God gave me to live, 



®l)c ®alc of tfjc Call aicalbe 


IOI 


I see as God gave me to see. 

’Tis not my nature to forgive, 

Or cringe and plead and bend my 
knee 

To God or man in woe or weal, 

In penitence I cannot feel. 

"I do not question school nor 
creed 

Of Christian, Protestant, or Priest; 

I only know that creeds to me 
Are but new names for mystery, 

That good is good from east to east, 
And more I do not know nor need 
To know, to love my neighbor well. 

I take their dogmas, as they tell, 
Their pictures of their Godly good, 

In garments thick with heathen blood 
Their heaven with his harp of gold, 
Their horrid pictures of their hell— 
Take hell and heaven undenied, 

Yet were the two placed side by 
side, 

Placed full before me for my choice, 
As they are pictured, best and worst, 
As they are peopled, tame and bold, 
The canonized, and the accursed 
Who dared to think, and thinking 
speak, 

And speaking act, bold cheek to 
cheek, 

I would in transports choose the first, 
And enter hell with lifted voice. 

• •••••• 

“Go read the annals of the North 
And records there of many a wail, 

Of marshaling and going forth 
For missing sheriffs, and for men 
Who fell and none knew how or 
when,— 


Who disappear’d on mountain trail, 
Or in some dense and narrow vale. 
Go, traverse Trinity and Scott, 

That curve their dark backs to the 
sun: 

Go, prowl them all. Lo! have they 
not 

The chronicles of my wild life? 

My secret on their lips of stone, 

My archives built of human bone? 
Go, range their wilds as I have done, 
From snowy crest to sleeping vales, 
And you will find on every one 
Enough to swell a thousand tales. 

* * * * * 

“The soul cannot survive alone, 
And hate will die, like other things; 

I felt an ebbing in my rage; 

I hunger’d for the sound of one, 

Just one familiar word,— 

Yearn’d but to hear my fellow 
speak, 

Or sound of woman’s mellow tone, 

As beats the wild, imprisoned bird, 
That long nor kind nor mate has 
heard, 

With bleeding wings and panting 
beak 

Against its iron cage. 

“I saw a low-roof’d rancho lie, 

Far, far below, at set of sun, 

Along the foot-hills crisp and dun— 
A lone sweet star in lower sky; 

Saw children passing to and fro, 

The busy housewife come and go, 
And white cows come at her com¬ 
mand, 

And none look’d larger than my 
hand. 







102 


®{je Stale of tlje Stall Slcalfce 


Then worn and torn, and tann’d and 
brown, 

And heedless all, I hasten’d down; 

A wanderer, wandering lorn and late, 

I stood before the rustic gate. 

“Two little girls, with brown feet 
bare, 

And tangled, tossing, yellow hair, 
Play’d on the green, fantastic 
dress’d, 

Around a great Newfoundland 
brute 

That lay half-resting on his breast, 
And with his red mouth open’d 
wide 

Would make believe that he would 
bite, 

As they assail’d him left and right, 
And then sprang to the other side, 
And fill’d with shouts the willing 
air. 

Oh, sweeter far than lyre or lute 
To my then hot and thirsty heart, 
And better self so wholly mute, 

Were those sweet voices calling there. 

“Though some sweet scenes my 
eyes have seen, 

Some melody my soul has heard, 

No song of any maid, or bird, 

Or splendid wealth of tropic scene, 

Or scene or song of anywhere, 

Has my impulsive soul so stirr’d, 

As those young angels sporting 
there. 

“ The dog at sight of me arose, 

And nobly stood with lifted nose, 
Afront the children, now so still, 

And staring at me with a will. 


‘Come in, come in,’ the rancher 

cried, 

As here and there the housewife 
hied; 

‘Sit down, sit down, you travel late. 
What news of politics or war? 

And are you tired? Go you far? 

And where you from? Be quick, my 
Kate, 

This boy is sure in need of food.’ 

The little children close by stood, 
And watch’d and gazed inquiringly, 
Then came and climbed upon my 
knee. 

“ ‘That there’s my Ma,’ the eldest 
said, 

And laugh’d and toss’d her pretty 
head; 

And then, half bating of her joy, 
‘Have you a Ma, you stranger boy? 
And there hangs Carlo on the wall 
As large as life; that mother drew 
With berry stains upon a shred 
Of tattered tent; but hardly you 
Would know the picture his at all, 
For Carlo’s black, and this is red.’ 
Again she laugh’d and shook her 
head, 

And shower’d curls all out of place; 
Then sudden sad, she raised her face 
To mine, and tenderly she said, 
‘Have you, like us, a pretty home? 
Have you, like me, a dog and toy? 
Where do you live, and whither 
roam? 

And where’s your Pa, poor stranger 
boy?’ 

“It seem’d so sweetly out of 
place 



®be Calc of tfje Call Slcalbe 


103 


Again to meet my fellow-man, 

I gazed and gazed upon his face 
As something I had never seen. 

The melody of woman’s voice 
Fell on my ear as falls the rain 
Upon the weary, waiting plain. 

I heard, and drank and drank again, 
As earth with crack’d lips drinks the 
rain, 

In green to revel and rejoice. 

I ate with thanks my frugal food, 
The first return’d for many a day. 

I had met kindness by the way! 

I had at last encounter’d good! 

“I sought my couch, but not to 
sleep; 

New thoughts were coursing strong 
and deep 

My wild, impulsive passion-heart; 

I could not rest, my heart was 
moved, 

My iron will forgot its part, 

And I wept like a child reproved. 

“ I lay and pictured me a life 
Afar from peril, hate, or pain; 
Enough of battle, blood, and strife, 

I would take up life’s load again; 
And ere the breaking of the morn 
I swung my rifle from the horn, 

And turned to other scenes and lands 
With lighten’d heart and whiten’d 
hands. 

“ Where orange blossoms never die, 
Where red fruits ripen all the year 
Beneath a sweet and balmy sky, 

Far from my language or my land, 
Reproach, regret, or shame or fear, 

I came in hope, I wander’d here— 


Yes, here; and this red, bony hand 
That holds this glass of ruddy 
cheer—” 

“’Tis he!” hiss’d the crafty 
advocate. 

He sprang to his feet, and hot with 
hate 

He reach’d his hands, and he call’d 
aloud, 

u ’Tis the renegade of the red 
McCloud! ” 

Slowly the Alcalde rose from his 
chair; 

“Hand me, touch me, him who 
dare!” 

And his heavy glass on the board of 
oak 

He smote with such savage and 
mighty stroke 

It ground to dust in his bony hand, 
And heavy bottles did clink and 
tip 

As if an earthquake were in the 
land. 

He tower’d up, and in his ire 
Seem’d taller than a church’s spire. 
He gazed a moment—and then, the 
while 

An icy cold and defiant smile 
Did curve his thin and livid lip, 

He turn’d on his heel, he strode 
through the hall 
Grand as a god, so grandly tall, 

Yet white and cold as a chisel’d 
stone; 

He passed him out the adobe door 
Into the night, and he passed alone, 
And never was known or heard of 
more. 




104 


®fjc Srijoman 

THE ARIZONIAN 


Come to my sunlandl Come with me 

To the land I love; where the sun and 
sea 

A re wed for ever; where the palm and 
pine 

Are fill'd with singers; where tree 
and vine 

Are voiced with prophets! 0 come, 
and you 

Shall sing a song with the seas that 
swirl 

And kiss their hands to that cold 
white girl, 

To the maiden moon in her mantle of 
blue. 

“And I have said, and I say it 
ever, 

As the years go on and the world goes 
over, 

’Twere better to be content and 
clever, 

In the tending of cattle and tossing of 
clover, 

In the grazing of cattle and growing 
of grain, 

Than a strong man striving for fame 
or gain; 

Be even as kine in the red-tipped 
clover: 

For they lie down and their rests are 
rests, 

And the days are theirs, come sun, 
come rain, 

To rest, rise up, and repose again; 

While we wish, yearn, and do pray in 
vain, 

And hope to ride on the billows of 
bosoms, 


And hope to rest in the haven of 

breasts, 

Till the heart is sicken'd and the fair 
hope dead— 

Be even as clover with its crown of 
blossoms, 

Even as blossoms ere the bloom is shed, 

Kiss’d by the kine and the brown 
sweet bee— 

For these have the sun, and moon, 
and air, 

And never a bit of the burthen of care: 

Yet with all of our caring what more 
have we? 

“ I would court content like a lover 
lonely, 

I would woo her, win her, and wear 
her only. 

I would never go over the white sea 
wall 

For gold or glory or for aught at all.” 

He said these things as he stood 
with the Squire 

By the river’s rim in the field of 
clover, 

While the stream flow’d on and the 
clouds flew over, 

With the sun tangled in and the 
fringes afire. 

So the Squire lean’d with a kindly 
glory 

To humor his guest, and to hear his 
story; 

For his guest had gold, and he yet 
was clever, 

And mild of manner; and, what was 
more, he, 



®1)e Siri^oniatt 


In the morning’s ramble had praised 
the kine, 

The clover's reach and the meadows 
fine, 

And so made the Squire his friend 
forever. 

His brow was brown’d by the sun 
and weather, 

And touch’d by the terrible hand of 
time; 

His rich black beard had a fringe of 
rime, 

As silk and silver inwove together. 

There were hoops of gold all over his 
hands, 

And across his breast in chains and 
bands, 

Broad and massive as belts of leather. 

And the belts of gold were bright in 
the sun, 

But brighter than gold his black eyes 
shone 

From their sad face-setting so swarth 
and dun— 

Brighter than beautiful Santan stone, 

Brighter even than balls of fire, 

As he said, hot-faced, in the face of 
the Squire:— 

" The pines bow’d over, the stream 
bent under, 

The cabin was cover’d with thatches 
of palm 

Down in a canon so deep, the wonder 

Was what it could know in its clime 
but calm: 

Down in a canon so cleft asunder 

By sabre-stroke in the young world’s 
prime, 


105 

It look’d as if broken by bolts of 
thunder, 

And burst asunder and rent and 
riven 

By earthquakes driven that turbulent 
time 

The red cross lifted red hands of 
heaven. 

"And this in that land where the 
sun goes down, 

And gold is gather’d by tide and by 
stream, 

And the maidens are brown as the 
cocoa brown, 

And life is a love and a love is a 
dream; 

Where the winds come in from the far 
Cathay 

With odor of spices and balm and 
bay, 

And summer abideth with man 
alway, 

Nor comes in a tour with the stately 
June, 

And comes too late and returns too 
soon. 

"She stood in the shadows as the 
sun went down, 

Fretting her hair with her fingers 
brown, 

As tall as the silk-tipp’d tassel’d 
corn— 

Stood watching, dark brow’d, as I 
weighed the gold 

We had wash’d that day where the 
river roll’d; 

And her proud lip curl’d with a sun- 
clime scorn, 




io6 


®fic Snjoman 


As she ask’d, ‘Is she better, or fairer 
than I?— 

She, that blonde in the land 
beyond, 

Where the sun is hid and the seas are 
high— 

That you gather in gold as the years 
go by, 

And hoard and hide it away for her 

As the squirrel burrows the black 
pine-burr?’ 

“Now the gold weigh’d well, but 
was lighter of weight 

Than we two had taken for days of 
late, 

So I was fretted, and brow a-frown, 

I said, half-angered, with head held 
down— 

‘Well, yes she is fairer; and I loved her 
first: 

And shall love her last, come worst to 
the worst.’ 

“Her lips grew livid, and her eyes 
afire 

As I said this thing; and higher and 
higher 

The hot words ran, when the booming 
thunder 

Peal’d in the crags and the pine-tops 
under, 

While up by the cliff in the murky 
skies 

It look’d as the clouds had caught the 
fire— 

The flash and fire of her wonderful 
eyes! 

“She turn’d from the door and 
down to the river, 


And mirror’d her face in the whimsi¬ 
cal tide, 

Then threw back her hair as one 
throwing a quiver, 

As an Indian throws it back far from 
his side 

And free from his hands, swinging 
fast to the shoulder 

When rushing to battle; and, turning, 
she sigh’d 

And shook, and shiver’d as aspens 
shiver. 

Then a great green snake slid into 
the river, 

Glistening green, and with eyes of fire; 

Quick, double-handed she seized a 
boulder, 

And cast it with all the fury of 
passion, 

As with lifted head it went curving 
across, 

Swift darting its tongue like a fierce 
desire, 

Curving and curving, lifting higher 
and higher, 

Bent and beautiful as a river moss; 

Then, smitten, it turn’d, bent, broken 
and doubled 

And lick’d, red-tongued, like a forked 
fire, 

Then sank and the troubled waters 
bubbled 

And so swept on in the old swift 
fashion. 

“ I lay in my hammock: the air was 
heavy 

And hot and threat’ning; the very 
heaven 

Was holding its breath; and bees in a 
bevy 



®f)e &ri?ontan 


107 


Hid under my thatch; and birds were 
driven 

In clouds to the rocks in a hurried 
whirr 

As I peer’d down by the path for her. 

“She stood like a bronze bent over 
the river, 

The proud eyes fix’d, the passion 
unspoken. 

Then the heavens broke like a great 
dyke broken; 

And ere I fairly had time to give 
her 

A shout of warning, a rushing of 
wind 

And the rolling of clouds and a deaf¬ 
ening din 

And a darkness that had been black 
to the blind 

Came down, as I shouted ‘Come in! 
Come in! 

Come under the roof, come up from 
the river, 

As up from a grave—come now, or 
come never! ” 

The tassel’d tops of the pines were as 
weeds, 

The red-woods rock’d like to lake¬ 
side reeds, 

And the world seemed darken’d and 
drown’d forever, 

While I crouched low; as a beast that 
bleeds. 

“ One time in the night as the black 
wind shifted, 

And a flash of lightning stretch’d 
over the stream, 

I seemed to see her with her brown 
hands lifted— 


Only seem’d to see as one sees in a 
dream— 

With her eyes wide wild and her pale 
lips press’d, 

And the blood from her brow, and the 
flood to her breast; 

When the flood caught her hair as 
flax in a wheel, 

And wheeling and whirling her round 
like a reel; 

Laugh’d loud her despair, then leapt 
like a steed, 

Holding tight to her hair, folding 
fast to her heel, 

Laughing fierce, leaping far as if 
spurr’d to its speed! 

“Now mind, I tell you all this did 
but seem— 

Was seen as you see fearful scenes in a 
dream; 

For what the devil could the lightning 
show 

In a night like that, I should like to 
know? 

“And then I slept, and sleeping I 
dream’d 

Of great green serpents with tongues 
of fire, 

And of death by drowning, and of 
after death— 

Of the day of judgment, wherein it 
seem’d 

That she, the heathen, was bidden 
higher, 

Higher than I; that I clung to her 
side, 

And clinging struggled, and strug¬ 
gling cried, 




io8 


®J)e iHrijonian 


And crying, wakened all weak of my 
breath. 

“Long leaves of the sun lay over 
the floor, 

And a chipmunk chirp’d in the open 
door, 

While above on his crag the eagle 
scream’d, 

Scream’d as he never had scream’d 
before. 

I rush’d to the river: the flood had 
gone 

Like a thief, with only his tracks 
upon 

The weeds and grasses and warm wet 
sand, 

And I ran after with reaching hand, 

And call’d as I reach’d, and reach’d as 
I ran, 

And ran till I came to the canon’s 
van, 

Where the waters lay in a bent 
lagoon, 

Hook’d and crook’d like the horned 
moon. 

“And there in the surge where the 
waters met, 

And the warm wave lifted, and the 
winds did fret 

The wave till it foam’d with rage on 
the land, 

She lay with the wave on the warm 
white sand; 

Her rich hair trailed with the trailing 
weeds, 

While her small brown hands lay 
prone or lifted 

As the waves sang strophes in the 
broken reeds, 


Or paused in pity, and in silence 
sifted 

Sands of gold, as upon her grave. 

“And as sure as you see yon brows¬ 
ing kine, 

And breathe the breath of your 
meadows fine, 

When I went to my waist in the warm 
white wave 

And stood all pale in the wave to my 
breast, 

And reach’d my hands in her rest and 
unrest, 

Her hands were lifted and reach’d 
to mine. 

“Now mind, I tell you, I cried, 
‘Come in! 

Come into the house, come out from 
the hollow, 

Come out of the storm, come up from 
the river!’ 

Aye, cried, and call’d in that desolate 
din, 

Though I did not rush out, and in 
plain words give her 

A wordy warning of the flood to 
follow, 

Word by word, and letter by letter; 

But she knew it as well as I, and 
better; 

For once in the desert of New Mexico 

When we two sought frantically far 
and wide 

For the famous spot where Apaches 
shot 

With bullets of gold their buffalo, 

And she stood faithful to death at my 
side, 

I threw me down in the hard hot sand 



®be 3rt?oman 


109 


Utterly famish’d and ready to die; 

Then a speck arose in the red-hot 
sky— 

A speck no larger than a lady’s 
hand— 

While she at my side bent tenderly 
over, 

Shielding my face from the sun as a 
cover, 

And wetting my face, as she watch’d 
by my side, 

From a skin she had borne till the 
high noontide, 

(I had emptied mine in the heat of the 
morning) 

When the thunder mutter’d far over 
the plain 

Like a monster bound or a beast in 
pain: 

She sprang the instant, and gave the 
warning, 

With her brown hand pointed to the 
burning skies, 

For I was too weak unto death to 
rise. 

But she knew the peril, and her iron 
will, 

With a heart as true as the great 
North Star, 

Did bear me up to the palm-tipp’d 
hill, 

Where the fiercest beasts in a brother¬ 
hood, 

Beasts that had fled from the plain 
and far, 

In perfectest peace expectant stood, 

With their heads held high, and their 
limbs a-quiver. 

Then ere she barely had time to 
breathe 

The boiling waters began to seethe 


From hill to hill in a booming river, 
Beating and breaking from hill to 
hill— 

Even while yet the sun shot fire, 
Without the shield of a cloud above— 
Filling the canon as you would fill 
A wine-cup, drinking in swift desire, 
With the brim new-kiss’d by the lips 
you love! 

“So you see she knew—knew per¬ 
fectly well, 

As well as I could shout and tell, 
That the mountain would send a flood 
to the plain, 

Sweeping the gorge like a hurricane 
When the fire flashed and the thunder 
fell. 

“Therefore it is wrong, and I say 
therefore 

Unfair, that a mystical, brown¬ 
wing’d moth 

Or midnight bat should forevermore 
Fan past my face with its wings of 
air, 

And follow me up, down, every¬ 
where, 

Flit past, pursue me, or fly before, 
Dimly limning in each fair place 
The full fixed eyes and the sad, brown 
face, 

So forty times worse than if it were 
wroth! 

“I gather’d the gold I had hid in 
the earth, 

Hid over the door and hid under the 
hearth: 

Hoarded and hid, as the world went 
over, 




no 


®f)t Stijotrian 


For the love of a blonde by a sun- 
brown'd lover, 

And I said to myself, as I set my 
face 

To the East and afar from the deso¬ 
late place, 

‘She has braided her tresses, and 
through her tears 

Look’d away to the West for years, 
the years 

That I have wrought where the sun 
tans brown; 

She has waked by night, she has 
watch’d by day, 

She has wept and wonder’d at my 
delay, 

Alone and in tears, with her head held 
down, 

Where the ships sail out and the seas 
whirl in, 

Forgetting to knit and refusing to 
spin. 

‘She shall lift her head, she shall 
see her lover, 

She shall hear his voice like a sea that 
rushes, 

She shall hold his gold in her hands of 
snow, 

And down on his breast she shall hide 
her blushes, 

And never a care shall her true heart 
know, 

While the clods are below, or the 
clouds are above her.’ 

“On the fringe of the night she 
stood with her pitcher 

At the old town fountain: and oh! 
passing fair. 

‘I am riper now,’ I said, ‘but am 
richer,’ 


And I lifted my hand to my beard 
and hair; 

‘I am burnt by the sun, I am brown’d 
by the sea; 

I am white of my beard, and am bald, 
may be; 

Yet for all such things what can her 
heart care?’ 

Then she moved; and I said, ‘How 
marvelous fair!’ 

She look’d to the West, with her arm 
arch’d over; 

‘Looking for me, her sun-brown’d 
lover,’ 

I said to myself, and my heart grew 
bold, 

And I stepp’d me nearer to her 
presence there, 

As approaching a friend; for ’twas 
here of old 

Our troths were plighted and the tale 
was told. 

“How young she was and how fair 
she was! 

How tall as a palm, and how pearly 
fair, 

As the night came down on her glori¬ 
ous hair! 

Then the night grew deep and my 
eyes grew dim, 

And a sad-faced figure began to swim 

And float by my face, flit past, then 
pause, 

With her hands held up and her head 
held down, 

Yet face to my face; and that face 
was brown! 

“ Now w r hy did she come and con¬ 
front me there, 



®fje Srijoman 


hi 


With the flood to her face and the 
moist in her hair, 

And a mystical stare in her marvelous 
eyes? 

I had call’d to her twice, ‘Come in! 
come in! 

Come out of the storm to the calm 
within!’ 

Now, that is the reason I do make 
complaint, 

That for ever and ever her face should 
rise, 

Facing face to face with her great sad 
eyes. 

“ I said then to myself, and I say it 
again, 

Gainsay it you, gainsay it who will, 

I shall say it over and over still, 

And will say it ever; for I know it 
true, 

That I did all that a man could do 
(Some men’s good doings are done in 
vain) 

To save that passionate child of the 
sun, 

With her love as deep as the doubled 
main, 

And as strong and fierce as a troubled 
sea— 

That beautiful bronze with its soul of 
fire, 

Its tropical love and its kingly ire- 
That child as fix’d as a pyramid, 

As tall as a tule and pure as a nun— 
And all there is of it, the all I did, 

As often happens was done in vain. 
So there is no bit of her blood on me. 

“ ‘She is marvelous young and won¬ 
derful fair,’ 


I said again, and my heart grew 
bold, 

And beat and beat a charge for my 
feet. 

‘Time that defaces us, places, and 
replaces us, 

And trenches our faces in furrows for 
tears, 

Has traced here nothing in all these 
years. 

’Tis the hair of gold that I vex’d of 
old, 

The marvelous flowing, gold-flower of 
hair, 

And the peaceful eyes in their sweet 
surprise 

That I have kiss’d till the head swam 
round. 

And the delicate curve of the dimpled 
chin, 

And the pouting lips and the pearls 
within 

Are the same, the same, but so young, 
so fair!’ 

My heart leapt out and back at a 
bound, 

As a child that starts, then stops, 
then lingers. 

‘How wonderful young!’ I lifted my 
fingers 

And fell to counting the round years 
down 

That I had dwelt where the sun tans 
brown. 

“Four full hands, and a finger 
over! 

‘She does not know me, her truant 
lover,’ 

I said to myself, for her brow was 
a-frown 




112 


)t Hrijonian 


As I stepp’d still nearer, with my 
head held down, 

All abash’d and in blushes my brown 
face over; 

‘She does not know me, her long lost 
lover, 

For my beard’s so long and my skin 
so brown 

That I well might pass myself for 
another.' 

So I lifted my voice and I spake 
aloud : 

‘Annette, my darling! Annette Mac- 
leod!’ 

vShe started, she stopped, she turn’d 
amazed, 

She stood all wonder, her eyes wild¬ 
wide, 

Then turn’d in terror down the dusk 
wayside, 

And cried as she fled, ‘The man he is 
crazed, 

And he calls the maiden name of my 
mother!’ 

“ Let the world turn over, and over, 
and over, 

And toss and tumble like beasts in 
pain, 

Crack, quake, and tremble, and turn 
full over 

And die, and never rise up again; 

Let her dash her peaks through the 
purple cover, 

Let her plash her seas in the face of 
the sun— 

I have no one to love me now, not 
one, 

In a world as full as a world can 
hold; 

So I will get gold as I erst have done, 


I will gather a coffin top-full of 
gold; 

To take to the door of Death, to 
buy— 

Buy what, when I double my hands 
and die? 

“Go down, go down to your fields 
of clover, 

Go dow r n with your kine to the pas¬ 
tures fine, 

And give no thought, or care, or 
labor 

For maid or man, good name or 
neighbor; 

For I gave all as the years went 
over— 

Gave all my youth, my years and 
labor, 

And a heart as warm as the world is 
cold, 

For a beautiful, bright, and delusive 
lie: 

Gave youth, gave years, gave love for 
gold; 

Giving and getting, yet what have I? 

“The red ripe stars hang low over¬ 
head, 

Let the good and the light of soul 
reach up, 

Pluck gold as plucking a butter-cup: 

But I am as lead, and my hands are 
red. 

“ So the sun climbs up, and on, and 
over, 

And the days go out and the tides 
come in, 

And the pale moon rubs on her purple 
cover 



®fje Hast tEasdjastas 


Till worn as thin and as bright as 
tin; 

But the ways are dark and the days 
are dreary, 

And the dreams of youth are but dust 
in age, 

And the heart grows harden’d and the 
hands grow weary, 

Holding them up for their heritage. 

“For we promise so great and we 
gain so little; 

For we promise so great of glory and 
gold, 

And we gain so little that the hands 
grow cold, 

And the strained^^art-strings wear 
bare and bnttle, 

And for gold and glory we but gain 
instead 

A fond heart sicken’d and a fair hope 
dead. 


1 13 

“So I have said, and I say it 
over, 

And can prove it over and over 
again, 

That the four-footed beasts in the 
red-crown’d clover, 

The pied and horned beasts on the 
plain 

That lie down, rise up, and repose 
again, 

And do never take care or toil or 
spin, 

Nor buy, nor build, nor gather in 
gold, 

As the days go out and the tides 
come in, 

Are better than we by a thousand¬ 
fold; 

For what is it all, in the words of 
fire, 

But a vexing of soul and a vain 
desire? ” 


THE LAST TASCHASTAS 


The hills were hr own, the heavens were 
blue, 

A zvoodpecker pounded a pine-top shell, 

While a partridge whistled the whole 
day through 

For a rabbit to dance in the chaparral, 
And a grey grouse drumm’d, “ All's 
well, all’s well.” 

I 

Wrinkled and brown as a bag of 
leather, 

A squaw sits moaning long and low. 

Yesterday she was a wife and mother, 


Today she is rocking her to and fro, 

A childless widow, in weeds and woe. 

An Indian sits in a rocky cavern 

Chipping a flint in an arrow head; 

His children are moving as still as 
shadows, 

His squaw is moulding some balls of 
lead, 

With round face painted a battle-red. 

An Indian sits in a black-jack jungle, 

Where a grizzly bear has rear’d her 
young, 


8 




114 TOjc Hasrt 

Whetting a flint on a granite 
boulder. 

His quiver is over his brown back 
hung— 

His face is streak’d and his bow is 
strung. 

An Indian hangs from a cliff of 
granite, 

Like an eagle’s nest built in the air, 

Looking away to the east, and 
watching 

The smoke of the cabins curling 
there, 

And eagle’s feathers are in his hair. 

In belt of wampum, in battle fashion 

An Indian watches with wild desire. 

He is red with paint, he is black with 
passion; 

And grand as a god in his savage 
ire, 

He leans and listens till stars are 
a-fire. 

All somber and sullen and sad, a 
chieftain 

Now looks from the mountain far 
into the sea. 

Just before him beat in the white 
billows, 

Just behind him the toppled tall 
tree 

And woodmen chopping, knee 
buckled to knee. 

II 

All together, all in council, 

In a canon wall’d so high 

That, nothing could ever reach them 


tKasdjafitasi 

Save some stars dropp’d from the 

sky. 

And the brown bats sweeping by: 

Tawny chieftains thin and wiry, 

Wise as brief, and brief as bold; 
Chieftains young and fierce and 
fiery, 

Chieftains stately, stern and old, 
Bronzed and battered—battered 
gold. 

Flamed the council-fire brighter, 
Flash’d black eyes like diamond 
beads, 

When a woman told her sorrows, 
While a warrior told his deeds, 

And a widow tore her weeds. 

Then was lit the pipe of council 
That their fathers smoked of old, 
With its stem of manzanita, 

And its bowl of quartz and gold, 

And traditions manifold. 

How from lip to lip in silence 
Burn’d it round the circle red, 

Like an evil star slow passing 
(Sign of battles and bloodshed) 
Round the heavens overhead. 

Then the silence deep was broken 
By the thunder rolling far, 

As gods muttering in anger, 

Or the bloody battle-car 
Of some Christian king at war. 

“ ’Tis the spirits of my Fathers 
Mutt’ring vengeance in the skies; 
And the flashing of the lightning 



je Hast Cascfjafitatf 


Is the anger of their eyes, 

Bidding us in battle rise,” 

Cried the war-chief, now uprising, 
Naked all above the waist, 

While a belt of shells and silver 
Held his tamoos to its place, 

And the war-paint streaked his face. 

Women melted from the council, 
Boys crept backward out of sight, 
Till alone a wall of warriors 
In their paint and battle-plight 
Sat reflecting back the light. 

“O my Fathers in the storm- 
cloud!” 

(Red arms tossing to the skies, 

While the massive walls of granite 
Seem'd to shrink to half their size, 
And to mutter strange replies)— 

“Soon we come, O angry Fathers, 
Down the darkness you have cross’d: 
Speak for hunting-grounds there for 
us; 

Those you left us we have lost— 
Gone like blossoms in a frost. 

“Warriors! ” (and his arms fell folded 
On his tawny, swelling breast, 

While his voice, now low and plain¬ 
tive 

As the waves in their unrest, 
Touching tenderness confess’d). 

“Where is Wrotto, wise of counsel, 
Yesterday here in his place? 

A brave lies dead down in the 
valley, 


1 15 

Last brave of his line and race, 

And a Ghost sits on his face. 

11 Where his boy the tender-hearted. 
With his mother yestermom? 

Lo! a wigwam door is darken’d, 

And a mother mourns forlorn, 

With her long locks toss’d and torn. 

“Lo! our daughters have been 
gather’d 

From among us by the foe, 

Like the lilies they once gather’d 
In the spring-time all aglow 
From the banks of living snow. 

“Through the land where we for 
ages 

Laid the bravest, dearest dead, 
Grinds the savage white man’s plow¬ 
share 

Grinding sire’s bones for bread— 

We shall give them blood instead. 

“I saw white skulls in a furrow, 

And around the cursed plowshare 
Clung the flesh of my own children, 
And my mother’s tangled hair 
Trailed along the furrow there. 

“Warriors! braves! I cry for ven¬ 
geance 1 

And the dim ghosts of the dead 
Unavenged do wail and shiver 
In the storm cloud overhead, 

And shoot arrows battle-red.” 

Then he ceased and sat among 
them, 

With his long locks backward strown; 
They as mute as men of marble, 




116 


®fjc Hast Cascfjastas 


He a king upon the throne, 

And as still as any stone. 

Then uprose the war chief’s daughter, 
Taller than the tassell’d com, 
Sweeter than the kiss of morning, 
Sad as some sweet star of morn, 

Half defiant, half forlorn. 

Robed in skins of striped panther 
Lifting loosely to the air 
With a face a shade of sorrow 
And black eyes that said, Beware! 
Nestled in a storm of hair; 

With her striped robes around her, 
Fasten’d by an eagle’s beak, 

Stood she by the stately chieftain, 
Proud and pure as Shasta’s peak, 

As she ventured thus to speak: 

“Must the tomahawk of battle 
Be unburied where it lies, 

O, last war chief of Taschastas? 

Must the smoke of battle rise 
Like a storm cloud in the skies? 

“True, some wretch has laid a 
brother 

With his swift feet to the sun, 

But because one bough is broken, 
Must the broad oak be undone? 

All the fir trees fell’d as one? 

“True, the braves have faded, 
wasted 

Like ripe blossoms in the rain, 

But when we have spent the arrows, 
Do we twang the string in vain, 

And then snap the bow in twain? ’’ 


Like a vessel in the tempest 
Shook the warrior, wild and grim, 

As he gazed out in the midnight, 

As to things that beckon’d him, 

And his eyes were moist and dim. 

Then he turn’d, and to his bosom 
Battle-scarr’d, and strong as brass, 
Tenderly the warrior press'd her 
As if she were made of glass, 
Murmuring, “Alas! alas! 

1 ‘ Loua Ellah! Spotted Lily! 

Streaks of blood shall be the sign, 

On their cursed and mystic pages, 
Representing me and mine! 

By Tonatiu’s fiery shrine! 

“When the grass shall grow un¬ 
trodden 

In my warpath, and the plow 
Shall be grinding through this canon 
Where my braves are gather’d now, 
Still shall they record this vow: 

“War and vegeance! rise, my war¬ 
riors, 

Rise and shout the battle sign, 

Ye who love revenge and glory! 

Ye for peace, in silence pine, 

And no more be braves of mine.” 

Then the war yell roll’d and echoed 
As they started from the ground, 

Till an eagle from his cedar 
Starting, answer’d back the sound, 
And flew circling round and round. 

“Enough, enough, my kingly 
father,” 

And the glory of her eyes 





®fje Hasrt 

Flash’d the valor and the passion 
That may sleep but never dies, 

As she proudly thus replies: 

"Can the cedar be a willow, 

Pliant and as little worth? 

It shall stand the king of forests, 

Or its fall shall shake the earth, 
Desolating heart and hearth!” 

• • • • • • • 

III 


From cold east shore to warm west 
sea 

The red men followed the red sun, 
And faint and failing fast as he, 

They knew too well their race was 
run. 

This ancient tribe, press’d to the 
wave, 

There fain had slept a patient 
slave, 

And died out as red embers die 
From flames that once leapt hot and 
high; 

But, roused to anger, half arose 
Around that chief, a sudden flood, 

A hot and hungry cry for blood; 

Half drowsy shook a feeble hand, 
Then sank back in a tame repose, 
And left him to his fate and foes, 

A stately wreck upon the strand. 

• • • o a o « 

,His eye was like the lightning’s 
wing, 

His voice was like a rushing flood; 
And when a captive bound he stood 


{Eatfcfjasrta# 117 

His presence look’d the perfect 
king. 

’Twas held at first that he should 
die: 

I never knew the reason why 
A milder counsel did prevail, 

Save that we shrank from blood, and 
save 

That brave men do respect the 
brave. 

Down sea sometimes there was a 
sail, 

And far at sea, they said, an isle, 

And he was sentenced to exile; 

In open boat upon the sea 
To go the instant on the main, 

And never under penalty 
Of death to touch the shore again. 

A troop of bearded buckskinn’d 
men 

Bore him hard-hurried to the wave, 
Placed him swift in the boat; and 
then 

vSwift pushing to the gristling sea, 

Plis daughter rush’d down suddenly, 
Threw him his bow, leapt from the 
shore 

Into the boat beside the brave, 

And sat her down and seized the 
oar, 

And never question’d, made replies, 
Or moved her lips, or raised her 
eyes. 

His breast was like a gate of 
brass, 

His brow was like a gather’d storm; 
There is no chisell’d stone that 
has 

So stately and complete a form, 




118 ®f)e Hast ®aficf)a£tas 


In sinew, arm, and every part, 

In all the galleries of art. 

Gray, bronzed, and naked to the 
waist, 

He stood half halting in the prow, 
With quiver bare and idle bow, 

The warm sea fondled with the 
shore, 

And laid his white face to the sands, 
His daughter sat with her sad face 
Bent on the wave, with her two 
hands 

Held tightly to the dripping oar; 

And as she sat, her dimpled knee 
Bent lithe as wand or willow tree, 

So round and full, so rich and free, 
That no one would have ever 
known 

That it had either joint or bone. 

Her eyes were black, her face was 
brown, 

Her breasts were bare and there fell 
down 

Such wealth of hair, it almost hid 
The two, in its rich jetty fold— 
Which I had sometime fain forbid, 
They were so richer, fuller far 
Than any polish’d bronzes are, 

And richer hued than any gold. 

On her brown arms and her brown 
hands 

Were bars of gold and golden bands, 
Rough hammer’d from the virgin 
ore, 

So heavy, they could hold no more. 

I wonder now, I wonder’d then, 
That men who fear’d not gods nor 
men 


Laid no rude hands at all on her,— 

I think she had a dagger slid 
Down in her silver’d wampum belt; 
It might have been, instead of hilt, 

A flashing diamond hurry-hid 
That I beheld— I could not know 
For certain, we did hasten so; 

And I know now less sure than 
then; 

And years drown memories of men. 
Some things have happened since— 
and then 

This happen’d years and years ago. 

“Go, go!" the captain cried, and 
smote 

With sword and boot the swaying 
boat, 

Until it quiver’d as at sea 
And brought the old chief to his 
knee. 

He turn’d his face, and turning rose 
With hand raised fiercely to his 
foes: 

“Yes, I will go, last of my race, 
Push’d by you robbers ruthlessly 
Into the hollows of the sea, 

From this my last, last resting 
place. 

Traditions of my fathers say 
A feeble few reach’d for this land, 
And we reach’d them a welcome 
hand 

Of old, upon another shore; 

Now they are strong, we weak as 
they, 

And they have driven us before 
Their faces, from that sea to this: 
Then marvel not if we have sped 
Sometime an arrow as we fled, 

So keener than a serpent’s kiss." 



®fje Hasrt 

He turn’d a time unto the sun 
That lay half hidden in the sea, 

As in his hollows rock’d asleep, 

All trembled and breathed heavily; 
Then arch’d his arm, as you have 
done, 

For sharp masts piercing through the 
deep. 

No shore or kind ship met his eye, 

Or isle, or sail, or anything, 

Save white sea gulls on dipping wing, 
And mobile sea and molten sky. 

“Farewell!—push seaward, child!” 
he cried, 

And quick the paddle-strokes replied. 
Like lightning from the panther-skin, 
That bound his loins round about 
He snatch’d a poison’d arrow out, 
That like a snake lay hid within, 

And twang’d his bow. The captain 
fell 

Prone on his face, and such a yell 
Of triumph from that savage rose 
As man may never hear again. 

He stood as standing on the main, 
The topmost main, in proud repose, 
And shook his clench’d fist at his 
foes, 

And call’d, and cursed them every 
one. 

He heeded not the shouts and shot 
That follow’d him, but grand and 
grim 

Stood up against the level sun; 

And, standing so, seem’d in his ire 
So grander than some ship on fire. 


Cascfjastas 119 

And when the sun had left the 
sea, 

That laves Abrup, and Blanco laves, 
And left the land to death and me, 
The only thing that I could see 
Was, ever as the light boat lay 
High lifted on the white-back’d 
waves, 

A head as gray and toss’d as they. 

We raised the dead and from his 
hands 

Pick’d out some shells, clutched as he 
lay, 

And two by two bore him away, 

And wiped his lips of blood and 
sands. 

We bent and scooped a shallow home, 
And laid him warm-wet in his 
blood, 

Just as the lifted tide a-fiood 
Came charging in with mouth a- 
foam: 

And as we turn’d, the sensate thing 
Reached up, lick’d out its foamy 
tongue, 

Lick’d out its tongue and tasted 
blood; 

The white lips to the red earth 
clung 

An instant, and then loosening 
All hold just like a living thing, 

Drew back sad-voiced and shuddering, 
All stained with blood, a striped 
flood. 



120 


Soaqutn JHurietta 


- JOAQUIN 

Glintings of day in the darkness , 
Flashings of flint and steel , 

Blended in gossamer texture 
The ideal and the real, 

Limn'd like the phantom ship shadow 
Crowding up under the keel. 

I stand beside the mobile sea, 

And sails are spread, and sails are 
furl’d; 

From farthest corners of the world, 
And fold like white wings wearily. 
Some ships go up, and some go 
down 

In haste, like traders in a town. 

Afar at sea some white .ships flee, 
With arms stretch’d like a ghost’s to 
me, 

And cloud-like sails are blown and 
curl’d, 

Then glide down to the under world. 
As if blown bare in winter blasts 
Of leaf and limb, tall naked masts 
Are rising from the restless sea. 

I seem to see them gleam and shine 
With clinging drops of dripping 
brine. 

Broad still brown wings flit here and 
there, 

Thin sea-blue wings wheel every¬ 
where, 

And white wings whistle through the 
air; 

I hear a thousand sea gulls call. 

And San Francisco Bay is white 
And blue with sail and sea and light. 


MURIETTA 

Behold the ocean on the beach 
Kneel lowly down as if in prayer, 

I hear a moan as of despair, 

While far at sea do toss and reach 
Some things so like white pleading 
hands : 

The ocean’s thin and hoary hair 
Is trail’d along the silver’d sands, 

At every sigh and sounding moan. 
The very birds shriek in distress 
And sound the ocean’s monotone. 
'Tis not a place for mirthfulness, 

But meditation deep, and prayer, 
And kneelings on the salted sod, 
Where man must own his littleness, 
And know the mightiness of God. 

Dared I but say a prophecy, 

As sang the holy men of old, 

Of rock-built cities yet to be 
Along these shining shores of gold, 
Crowding athirst into the sea, 

What wondrous marvels might be 
told! 

Enough, to know that empire here 
Shall burn her loftiest, brightest 
star; 

Here art and eloquence shall reign, 

As o’er the wolf-rear’d realm of old; 
Here learn’d and famous from afar, 
To pay their noble court, shall come, 
And shall not seek or see in vain, 

But look and look with wonder 
dumb. 

Afar the bright Sierras lie 
A swaying line of snowy white, 

A fringe of heaven hung in sight 
Against the blue base of the sky. 





Joaquin JWurietta 


121 


I look along each gaping gorge, 

I hear a thousand sounding strokes 
Like giants rending giant oaks, 

Or brawny Vulcan at his forge; 

I see pickaxes flash and shine; 

Hear great wheels whirling in a 
mine. 

Here winds a thick and yellow 
thread, 

A moss’d and silver stream instead; 
And trout that leap’d its rippled 
tide 

Have turn'd upon their sides and 
died. 

Lo! when the last pick in the mine 
Lies rusting red with idleness, 

And rot yon cabins in the mold, 

And wheels no more croak in distress, 
And tall pines reassert command, 
Sweet bards along this sunset shore 
Their mellow melodies will pour; 

Will charm as charmers very wise, 
Will strike the harp with master 
hand, 

Will sound unto the vaulted skies, 
The valor of these men of old— 
These mighty men of ’Forty-nine; 
Will sweetly sing and proudly say, 
Long, long agone there was a day 
When there were giants in the land. 

• • • • O o • 

Now who rides rushing on the sight 
Hard down yon rocky long defile, 
Swift as an eagle in his flight, 

Fierce as winter’s storm at night 
Blown from the bleak Sierra’s 
height? 

Such reckless rider!—I do ween 
No mortal man his like has seen. 


And yet, but for his long serape 
All flowing loose, and black as crape, 
And long silk locks of blackest hair 
All streaming wildly in the breeze, 
You might believe him in a chair, 

Or chatting at some country fair, 

He rides so grandly at his ease. 

But now he grasps a tighter rein, 

A red rein wrought in golden chain, 
And in his tapidaros stands, 

Turns, shouts defiance at his foe. 
And now he calmly bares his brow 
As if to challenge fate, and now 
His hand drops to his saddle-bow 
And clutches something gleaming 
there 

As if to something more than dare. 

The stray winds lift the raven curls, 
Soft as a fair Castilian girl’s, 

And bare a brow so manly, high, 

Its every feature does belie 
The thought he is compell’d to fly; 

A brow as open as the sky 
On which you gaze and gaze again 
As on a picture you have seen 
And often sought to see in vain; 

A brow of blended pride and pain, 
That seems to hold a tale of woe 
Or wonder, that you fain would 
know 

A boy’s brow, cut as with a knife, 
With many a dubious deed in life. 

Again he grasps his glitt’ring rein, 
And, wheeling like a hurricane, 
Defying wood, or stone, or flood, 

Is dashing down the gorge again. 

Oh, never yet has prouder steed 
Borne master nobler in his need! 




122 


SFoaquin jfflurietta 


There is a glory in his eye 
That seems to dare and to defy 
Pursuit, or time, or space, or race. 
His body is the type of speed, 

While from his nostril to his heel 
Are muscles as if made of steel. 

What crimes have made that red 
hand red? 

What wrongs have written that 
young face 

With lines of thought so out of 
place? 

Where flies he? And from whence 
has fled? 

And what his lineage and race? 

What glitters in his heavy belt, 

And from his furr’d cantenas 
gleam? 

What on his bosom that doth seem 
A diamond bright or dagger’s hilt? 
The iron hoofs that still resound 
Like thunder from the yielding 
ground 

Alone reply; and now the plain, 
Quick as you breathe and gaze 
again, 

Is won, and all pursuit is vain. 

I stand upon a mountain rim, 
Stone-paved and pattern’d as a 
street; 

A rock-lipped canon plunging south, 
As if it were earth’s open'd mouth, 
Yawns deep and darkling at my 
feet; 

So deep, so distant, and so dim 
Its waters wind, a yellow thread, 

And call so faintly and so far, 

I turn aside my swooning head. 


I feel a fierce impulse to leap 
Adown the beetling precipice, 

Like some lone, lost, uncertain star; 
To plunge into a place unknown, 
And win a world, all, all my own; 

Or if I might not meet such bliss, 

At least escape the curse of this. 

I gaze again. A gleaming star 
Shines back as from some mossy well 
Reflected from blue fields afar. 
Brown hawks are wheeling here and 
there, 

And up and down the broken wall 
Cling clumps of dark green chaparral, 
While from the rent rocks, grey and 
bare, 

Blue junipers hang in the air. 

Here, cedars sweep the stream and 
here, 

Among the boulders moss’d and 
brown 

That time and storms have toppled 
down 

From towers undefiled by man, 

Low cabins nestle as in fear, 

And look no taller than a span. 

From low and shapeless chimneys rise 
Some tall straight columns of blue 
smoke, 

And weld them to the bluer skies; 
While sounding dow r n the somber 
gorge 

I hear the steady pickax stroke, 

As if upon a flashing forge. 

• •••••• 

Another scene, another sound!— 
Sharp shots are fretting through the 
air, 



3 Joaqutn fflurietta 


123 


Red knives are flashing everywhere, 
And here and there the yellow flood 
Is purpled with warm smoking blood. 
The brown hawk swoops low to the 
ground, 

And nimble chipmunks, small and 
still, 

Dart striped lines across the sill 
That manly feet shall press no more. 
The flume lies w'arping in the sun, 
The pan sits empty by the door, 

The pickax on its bedrock floor 
Lies rusting in the silent mine. 

There comes no single sound nor 
sign 

Of life, beside yon monks in brown 
That dart their dim shapes up and 
down 

The rocks that swelter in the sun; 
But dashing down yon rocky spur, 
Where scarce a hawk would dare to 
whirr, 

A horseman holds his reckless flight. 
He wears a flowing black capote, 
While over all do flow and float 
Long locks of hair as dark as night, 
And hands are red that erst were 
white. 

All up and down the land today 
Black desolation and despair 
It seems have set and settled there, 
With none to frighten them away. 
Like sentries watching by the w r ay 
Black chimneys topple in the air, 

And seem to say, Go back, beware! 
While up around the mountain’s 
rim 

Are clouds of smoke, so still and 
grim 

They look as they are fasten’d there. 


A lonely stillness, so like death, 

So touches, terrifies all things, 

That even rooks that fly o’erhead 
Are hush’d, and seem to hold their 
breath, 

To fly with sullen, muffled wings, 
And heavy as if made of lead. 

Some skulls that crumble to the 
touch, 

Some joints of thin and chalk-like 
bone, 

A tall black chimney, all alone, 

That leans as if upon a crutch, 

Alone are left to mark or tell, 

Instead of cross or cryptic stone, 
Where Joaquin stood and brave men 
fell. 


The sun is red and flush’d and dry. 
And fretted from his weary beat 
Across the hot and desert sky, 

And swollen as from overheat, 

And failing too; for see, he sinks 
Swift as a ball of burnish’d ore: 

It may be fancy, but methinks 
He never fell so fast before. 

I hear the neighing of hot steeds, 

I see the marshaling of men 
That silent move among the trees 
As busily as swarming bees 
With step and stealthiness profound, 
On carpetings of spindled weeds, 
Without a syllable or sound 
Save clashing of their burnish’d arms, 
Clinking dull, deathlike alarms— 
Grim bearded men and brawny men 
That grope among the ghostly trees. 
Were ever silent men as these? 

Was ever somber forest deep 



124 Joaquin 

And dark as this? Here one might 
sleep 

While all the weary years went 
round, 

Nor wake nor weep for sun or sound. 

A stone’s throw to the right, a 
rock 

Has rear’d his head among the 
stars— 

An island in the upper deep— 

And on his front a thousand scars 
Of thunder’s crash and earthquake’s 
shock 

Are seam’d as if by sabre’s sweep 
Of gods, enraged that he should rear 
His front amid their realms of air. 

What moves along his beetling 
brow, 

So small, so indistinct and far, 

This side yon blazing evening star, 
Seen through that redwood’s shifting 
bough? 

A lookout on the world below? 

A watcher for the friend—or foe? 

This still troop’s sentry it must be, 
Yet seems no taller than my knee. 

But for the grandeur of this gloom, 
And for the chafing steeds’ alarms, 
And brown men’s sullen clash of 
arms, 

This were but as a living tomb. 

These weeds are spindled, pale and 
white, 

As if nor sunshine, life, nor light 
Had ever reach’d this forest’s heart. 
Above, the redwood boughs entwine 
As dense as copse of tangled vine— 
Above, so fearfully afar, 


jfflurietfa 

It seems as ’twere a lesser sky, 

A sky without a moon or star, 

The moss’d boughs are so thick and 
high. 

At every lisp of leaf I start! 

Would I could hear a cricket trill, 

Or hear yon sentry from his hill, 

The place does seem so deathly still. 
But see a sudden lifted hand 
From one who still and sullen 
stands, 

With black serape and bloody hands, 
And coldly gives his brief command. 

They mount—away! Quick on his 
heel 

He turns and grasps his gleaming 
steel— 

Then sadly smiles, and stoops to kiss 
An upturn’d face so sweetly fair, 

So sadly, saintly, purely rare, 

So rich in blessedness and bliss! 

I know she is not flesh and blood, 

But some sweet spirit of this wood; 

I know it by her wealth of hair, 

And step on the unyielding air; 

Her seamless robe of shining white, 
Her soul-deep eyes of darkest night; 
But over all and more than all 
That can be said or can befall, 

That tongue can tell or pen can 
trace, 

That wondrous witchery of face. 

Between the trees I see him stride 
To where a red steed fretting stands 
Impatient for his lord’s commands; 
And she glides noiseless at his side. 

One hand toys with her waving 
hair, 




“Joaquin jMurietta 


125 


Soft lifting from her shoulders bare; 
The other holds the loosen’d rein, 
And rests upon the swelling mane 
That curls the curved neck o’er and 
o’er, 

Like waves that swirl along the 
shore. 

He hears the last retreating sound 
Of iron on volcanic stone, 

That echoes far from peak to plain, 
And ’neath the dense wood’s sable 
zone, 

He peers the dark Sierras down. 

His hand forsakes her raven hair, 
His eyes have an unearthly glare; 

She shrinks and shudders at his side, 
Then lifts to his her moisten’d eyes, 
And only looks her sad replies. 

A sullenness his soul enthralls, 

A silence bom of hate and pride: 

His fierce volcanic heart so deep 
Is stirr’d, his teeth, despite his will, 
Do chatter as if in a chill; 

His very dagger at his side 
Does shake and rattle in its sheath, 
As blades of brown grass in a gale 
Do rustle on the frosted heath: 

And yet he does not bend or weep, 
But sudden mounts, then leans him 
o’er 

To breathe her hot breath but once 
more. 

I do not mark the prison’d sighs, 

I do not meet the moisten’d eyes, 
The while he leans him from his 
place 

Down to her sweet uplifted face. 

A low sweet melody is heard 
Like cooing of some Balize bird, 


So fine it does not touch the air, 

So faint it stirs not anywhere; 

Faint as the falling of the dew, 

Low as a pure unutter’d prayer, 

The meeting, mingling, as it were, 

In that one long, last, silent kiss 
Of souls in paradisal bliss. 

“You must not, shall not, shall not 
go! 

To die and leave me here to die! 
Enough of vengeance, Love and I? 

I die for home and—Mexico.” 

He leans, he plucks her to his 
breast, 

As plucking Mariposa’s flower, 

And now she crouches in her rest 
As resting in some rosy bower. 

Erect, again he grasps the rein! 

I see his black steed plunge and poise 
And beat the air with iron feet, 

And curve his noble glossy neck, 

And toss on high his swelling mane, 
And leap—away! he spurns the rein! 
He flies so fearfully and fleet, 

But for the hot hoofs’ ringing noise 
’Twould seem as if he were on wings. 

And they are gone! Gone like a 
breath, 

Gone like a white sail seen at night 
A moment, and then lost to sight; 
Gone like a star you look upon, 

That glimmers to a bead, a speck, 
Then softly melts into the dawn, 

And all is still and dark as death, 
And who shall sing, for who may 
know 

That mad, glad ride to Mexico? 



126 


Utitts from Iftra, !3 30 tama 


BITS FROM INA, A DRAMA 


Sad song of the wind in the 
mountains 

A nd the sea wave of grass on the plain, 

That breaks in bloom foam by the 
fountains, 

And forests, that breaketh again 

On the mountains, as breaketh a main. 

Bold thoughts that were strong as the 
grizzlies, 

Now weak in their prison of words; 

Bright fancies that flash'd like the 
glaciers, 

Now dimm'd like the luster of birds, 

And butterflies huddled as herds. 

Sad symphony,wild and unmeasured, 

Weed warp, and woof woven in 
strouds, 

Strange truths that a stray soul had 
treasured, 

Truths seen as through folding of 
shrouds 

Or as stars though the rolling of clouds. 

Scene I. 

A Hacienda near Tezcuco, Mexico. 
Young Don Carlos alone look¬ 
ing out on the moonlit mountain. 

Don Carlos. 

Popocatapetl looms lone like an 
island, 

Above white cloud-waves that break 
up against him; 

Around h‘m white buttes in the 
moonlight are flashing 


Like silver tents pitch’d in the fair 
fields of heaven; 

While standing in line, in their snows 
everlasting, 

Flash peaks, as my eyes into heaven 
are lifted, 

Like mile-stones that lead to the city 
Eternal. 

Ofttime when the sun and the sea 
lay together, 

Red-welded as one, in their red bed of 
lovers, 

Embracing and blushing like loves 
newly wedded, 

I have trod on the trailing crape 
fringes of twilight, 

And stood there and listen’d, and 
lean’d with lips parted, 

Till lordly peaks wrapp’d them, as 
chill night blew over, 

In great cloaks of sable, like proud 
somber Spaniards, 

And stalk’d from my presence down 
night’s corridors. 

When the red-curtained West has 
bent red as with weeping 

Low over the couch where the prone 
day lay dying, 

I have stood with brow lifted, con¬ 
fronting the mountains 

That held their white faces of snow in 
the heavens, 

And said, “It is theirs to array them 
so purely, 

Because of their nearness to the 
temple eternal”: 



I&itg from ina, & JBcanta 


And childlike have said, “They are 
fair resting places 

For the dear weary dead on their way 
up to heaven.” 

But my soul is not with you to¬ 
night, mighty mountains: 

It is held to the levels of earth by an 
angel 

Far more than a star, earth fallen or 
unfall’n, 

Yet fierce in her follies and head¬ 
strong and stronger 

Than streams of the sea running in 
with the billows. 

Very well. Let him woo, let him 
thrust his white whiskers 

And lips pale and purple with death, 
in between u>; 

Let her wed, as she wills, for the gold 
of the gray beard. 

I will set my face for you, O moun¬ 
tains, my brothers, 

For I yet have my honor, my con¬ 
science and freedom, 

My fleet-footed mustang, and pistols 
rich silver’d; 

I will turn as the earth turns her back 
on the sun, 

But return to the light of her eyes 
never more, 

While noons have a night and white 
seas have a shore. 

Ina, approaching. 

Ina. 

“ I have come, dear Don Carlos, to 
say you farewell, 


127 

I shall wed with Don Castro at dawn 
of to-morrow, 

And be all his own—firm, honest and 
faithful. 

I have promised this thing; that I 
will keep my promise 

You who do know me care never to 
question. 

I have mastered myself to say this 
thing to you; 

Hear me: be strong, then, and say 
adieu bravely; 

The world is his own who will brave 
its bleak hours. 

Dare, then, to confront the cold days 
in their column; 

As they march down upon you, stand, 
hew them to pieces, 

One after another, as you would a 
fierce foeman, 

Till not one abideth between two true 
bosoms.” 

[Don Carlos, with a laugh of scorn, 
flies from the veranda, mounts 
horse, and disappears.] 

Ina (looking out into the night, after a 
long silence ). 

Flow doleful the night hawk screams 
in the heavens, 

How dismally gibbers the gray coy¬ 
ote! 

Afar to the south now the turbulent 
thunder, 

Mine equal, my brother, my soul’s 
one companion, 

Talks low in his sleep like a giant deep 
troubled; 

Talks fierce in accord with my own 
stormy spirit. 



128 


ffita from 3 (na, 31 ©rama 


Scene II. 

Sunset on a spur of Mount Hood. 

Lamonte contemplates the scene. 

Lamonte. 

A flushed and weary messenger a- 
west 

Is standing at the half-closed door of 
day, 

As he would say, Good night; and 
now his bright 

Red cap he tips to me and turns his 
face, 

Were it an unholy thing to say, an 
angel now 

Beside the door stood with uplifted 
seal? 

Behold the door seal’d with that 
blood red seal 

Now burning, spreading o’er the 
mighty West. 

Never again shall that dead day 
arise 

Therefrom, but must be born and 
come anew. 

The tawny, solemn Night, child of 
the East, 

Her mournful robe trails o’er the dis¬ 
tant woods, 

And comes this way with firm and 
stately step. 

Afront, and very high, she wears a 
shield, 

A plate of silver, and upon her brow 

The radiant Venus bums a pretty 
lamp. 

Behold! how in her gorgeous flow of 
hair 


Do gleam a million mellow yellow 
gems, 

That spill their molten gold upon the 
dewy grass. 

Now throned on boundless plains, 
and gazing down 

So calmly on the red-seal’d tomb of 
day, 

She rests her form against the Rocky 
Mountains, 

And rules with silent power a peaceful 
world. 

’Tis midnight now. The bent and 
broken moon, 

All batter’d, black, as from a thou¬ 
sand battles, 

Hangs silent on the purple walls of 
heaven. 

The angel warrior, guard of the gates 
eternal, 

In battle-harness girt, sleeps on the 
field: 

But when tomorrow comes, when 
wicked men 

That fret the patient earth are all 
astir, 

He will resume his shield, and, facing 
earthward, 

The gates of heaven guard from sins 
of earth. 

’Tis morn. Behold the kingly day 
now leaps 

The eastern wall of earth, bright sword 
in hand, 

And clad in flowing robe of mellow 
light, 

Like to a king that has regain’d his 
throne, 




JStte from Kna, a Jirama 


129 


He warms his drooping subjects into 
joy, 

That rise renewed to do him fealty, 

And rules with pomp the universal 
world. 

Don Carlos ascends the mountain, 
gesticulating and talking to himself. 

Don Carlos. 

Oh, for a name that black-eyed 
maids would sigh 

And lean with parted lips at mention 

of; 

That I should seem so tall in minds of 
men 

That I might walk beneath the arch 
of heaven, 

And pluck the ripe red stars as I 
pass’d on, 

As favor’d guests do pluck the purple 
grapes 

That hang above the humble entrance 
way 

Of palm-thatch’d mountain inn of 
Mexico. 

Oh, I would give the green leaves of 
my life 

For something grand, for real and 
undream’d deeds! 

To wear a mantle, broad and richly 
gemm’d 

As purple heaven fringed with gold at 
sunset; 

To wear a crown as dazzling as the 
sun, 

And, holding up a scepter lightning- 
charged, 


Stride out among the stars as I once 
strode 

A barefoot boy among the buttercups. 

Alas! I am so restless. There is 
that 

Within me doth rebel and rise against 

The all I am and half I see in others; 

And were’t not for contempt of cow¬ 
ard act 

Of flying all defeated from the world, 

As if I feared and dared not face its 
ills, 

I should ere this have known, known 
more or less 

Than any flesh that frets this sullen 
earth. 

I know not where such thoughts will 
lead me to: 

I have had fear that they would drive 
me mad, 

And then have flattered my weak self, 
and said 

The soul’s outgrown the body—yea, 
the soul 

Aspires to the stars, and in its strug¬ 
gles upward 

Makes the dull flesh quiver as an 
aspen. 

Lamonte. 

What waif is this cast here upon my 
shore, 

From seas of subtle and most selfish 
men? 

Don Carlos. 

Of subtle and most selfish men!— 
ah, that’s the term! 


9 




130 


i&Hte front Ifna, 0 JBtama 


And if you be but earnest in your 
spleen. 

And other sex across man’s shoulders 
lash, 

I’ll stand beside you on this crag and 
howl 

And hurl my clenched fists down upon 
their heads, 

Till I am hoarse as yonder cataract. 
Lamonte. 

Why, no, my friend, I’ll not con¬ 
sent to that. 

No true man yet has ever woman 
cursed. 

And I—I do not hate my fellow man, 

For man by nature bears within 
himself 

Nobility that makes him half a god; 

But as in somewise he hath made 
himself, 

His universal thirst for gold and 
pomp, 

And purchased fleeting fame and 
bubble honors, 

Forgetting good, so mocking helpless 
age, 

I hold him but a sorry worm indeed; 

And so have turn’d me quietly 
aside 

To know the majesty of peaceful 
woods. 

Don Carlos (as if alone). 

The fabled font of youth led many 
fools, 

Zealous in its pursuit, to hapless 
death; 


And yet this thirst for fame, this hot 
ambition, 

This soft-toned syren-tongue, en¬ 
chanting Fame, 

Doth lead me headlong on to equal 
folly, 

Like to a wild bird charm’d by shin¬ 
ing coils 

And swift mesmeric glance of deadly 
snake: 

I would not break the charm, but win 
a world 

Or die with curses blistering my 
lips. 

Lamonte. 

Give up ambition, petty pride— 

By pride the angels fell. 

Don Carlos. 

By pride they reached a place from 
whence to fall. 

Lamonte. 

You startle me! I am unused to 
hear 

Men talk these fierce and bitter 
thoughts; and yet 

In closed recesses of my soul was 
once 

A dark and gloomy chamber where 
they dwelt. 

Give up ambition—yea, crush such 
thoughts 

As you would crush from hearth a 
scorpion brood; 



GBits' from 3na, 9 Drama 


For, mark me well, they’ll get the 
mastery, 

And drive you on to death—or worse, 
across 

A thousand ruin’d homes and broken 
hearts. 

Don Carlos. 

Give up ambition! Oh, rather 
than to die 

And glide a lonely, nameless, shiver¬ 
ing ghost 

Down time’s dark tide of utter 
nothingness, 

I’d write a name in blood and or¬ 
phans’ tears. 

The temple-burner wiser was than 
kings. 

Lamonte. 

And would you dare the curse of 
man and— 

Don Carlos. 

Dare the curse of man! 

I’d dare the fearful curse of God! 

I’d build a pyramid of whitest skulls, 

And step therefrom unto the spotted 
moon, 

And thence to stars, and thence to 
central suns. 

Then with one grand and mighty leap 
would land 

Unhinder’d on the shining shore of 
heaven, 

And, sword in hand, unbared and 
unabash’d, 


131 

Would stand bold forth in presence of 
the God 

Of gods, and on the jewel’d inner 
side 

The walls of heaven, carve with keen 
Damascus steel 

And highest up, a grand and titled 
name 

That time nor tide could touch or 
tarnish ever. 

Lamonte. 

Seek not to crop above the heads of 
men 

To be a better mark for envy’s 
shafts. 

Come to my peaceful home, and leave 
behind 

These stormy thoughts and daring 
aspirations. 

All earthly power is but a thing 
comparative. 

Is not a petty chief of some lone 
isle, 

With half a dozen nude and starving 
subjects, 

As much a king as he the Czar of 
Rusk? 

In yonder sweet retreat and balmy 
place 

I’ll abdicate, and you be chief 
indeed. 

There you will reign and tell me of 
the world, 

Its life and lights, its sins and sickly 
shadows. 

The pheasant will reveille beat at 
morn, 

And rouse us to the battle of the 
day. 



132 


JSitst from 3fna, 8 ©rarna 


My swarthy subjects will in circle 
sit, 

And, gazing on your noble presence, 
deem 

You great indeed, and call you chief 
of chiefs: 

And, knowing no one greater than 
yourself 

In all the leafy borders of your 
realm, 

'Gainst what can pride or poor ambi¬ 
tion chafe? 

'Twill be a kingdom without king, 
save you, 

More broad than that the cruel Cortes 
won, 

With subjects truer than he ever 
knew, 

That know no law but only nature’s 
law, 

And no religion know but that of 
love. 

There truth and beauty are, for there 
is Nature, 

Serene and simple. She will be our 
priestess, 

And in her calm and uncomplaining 
face 

We two will read her rubric and be 
wise. . . . 

Don Carlos. 

Why, truly now, this fierce and 
broken land, 

Seen through your eyes, assumes a 
fairer shape. 

Lead up, for you are nearer God than 

I. 


Scene III. 

Ina, in black , alone . Midnight . 
Ina. 

I weep? I weep? I laugh to 
think of it! 

I lift my dark brow to the breath of 
the ocean, 

Soft kissing me now like the lips of 
my mother, 

And laugh low and long as I crush 
the brown grasses, 

To think I should weep! Why, I 
never wept—never, 

Not even in punishments dealt me in 
childhood! 

Yea, all of my wrongs and my bitter¬ 
ness buried 

In my brave baby heart, all alone and 
unfriended. 

And I pitied, with proud and disdain- 
fulest pity, 

The weak who would weep, and I 
laugh’d at the folly 

Of those who could laugh and make 
merry with playthings. 

Nay, I will not weep now over that 
I desired. 

Desired? Yes: I to myself dare 
confess it, 

Ah, too, to the world should it ques¬ 
tion too closely, 

And bathe me and sport in a deep sea 
of candor. 

Let the world be deceived; it insists 
upon it: 



28its from 3na, & ©rama 


133 


Let it bundle me round in its black 
woe-garments; 

But I, self with self—my free soul 
fearless— 

Am frank as the sun, nor the toss of a 
copper 

Care I if the world call it good or 
evil. 

I am glad tonight, and in new-born 
freedom 

Forget all earth with my old 
companions,— 

The moon and the stars and the moon- 
clad ocean. 

I am face to face with the stars that 
know me, 

And gaze as I gazed in the eyes of my 
mother, 

Forgetting the city and the coarse 
things in it; 

For there’s naught but God in the 
shape of mortal, 

Save one—my wandering, wild boy- 
lover— 

That I esteem worth a stale banana. 


The hair hangs heavy and is warm on 
my shoulder, 

And is thick with the odors of balm 
and of blossom, 

The great bay sleeps with the ships on 
her bosom; 

Through the Golden Gate, to the left 
hand yonder, 

The white sea lies in a deep sleep, 
breathing, 

The father of melody, mother of 
measure. 


Scene IV. 

A wood by a rivulet on a spur of 
Mount Hood , overlooking the 
Columbia. Lamonte and Don 
Carlos, on their way to the camp , 
are reposing under the shadow of 
the forest. Some deer are observed 
descending to the brook , and Don 
Carlos seizes his rifle. 

Lamonte. 

Nay, nay, my friend, strike not 
from your covert, 

Strike like a serpent in the grass well 
hidden? 

What, steal into their homes, and, 
when they, thirsting, 

And all unsuspecting, come down in 
couples 

And dip brown muzzles in the mossy 
brink, 

Then shoot them down without 
chance to fly— 

The only means that God has given 
them, 

Poor, unarm’d mutes, to baffle man’s 
cunning? 

Ah, now I see you had not thought of 
this! 

The hare is fleet, and is most quick at 
sound, 

His coat is changed with the changing 
fields; 

Yon deer turn brown when the leaves 
turn brown; 

The dog has teeth, the cat has 
talons, 

A man has craft and sinewy arms: 




134 


SSite from fna, M JBtama 


All things that live have some means 
of defense 

All, all—save only fair lovely woman. 

Don Carlos. 

Nay, she has her tongue; is armed 
to the teeth. 

Lamonte. 

Thou Timon, what can ’scape your 
bitterness? 

But for this sweet content of Nature 
here, 

Upon whose breast we now recline 
and rest, 

Why, you might lift your voice and 
rail at her! 

Don Carlos. 

Oh, I am out of patience with your 
faith! 

What! She content and peaceful, 
uncomplaining ? 

I’ve seen her fretted like a lion 
caged, 

Chafe like a peevish woman cross’d 
and churl’d, 

Tramping and champing like a whelp¬ 
less bear; 

Have seen her weep till earth was wet 
with tears, 

Then turn all smiles—a jade that won 
her point? 

Have seen her tear the hoary hair of 
ocean, 

While he, himself full half a world, 
would moan 


And roll and toss his clumsy hands all 
day 

To earth like some great helpless 
babe, 

Rude-rock’d and cradled by an un¬ 
kind nurse, 

Then stain her snowy hem with salt- 
sea tears; 

And when the peaceful, mellow moon 
came forth, 

To walk and meditate among the 
blooms 

That make so blest the upper purple 
fields, 

This wroth dyspeptic sea ran after 
her 

With all his soul, as if to pour him¬ 
self, 

All sick and helpless, in her snowy 
lap. 

Content! Oh, she has cracked the 
ribs of earth 

And made her shake poor trembling 
man from off 

Her back, e’en as a grizzly shakes the 
hounds; 

She has upheaved her rocky spine 
against 

The flowing robes of the eternal God. 

Lamonte. 

There once was one of nature like 
to this: 

He stood a barehead boy upon a cliff 

Pine-crown’d, that hung high o’er a 
bleak north sea. 

His long hair stream’d and flashed 
like yellow silk, 

His sea-blue eyes lay deep and still as 
lakes 



from Sna, 8 ©rama 


i35 


O’erhung by mountains, arch’d in 
virgin snow; 

And far astray, and friendless and 
alone, 

A tropic bird blown through the north 
frost wind, 

He stood above the sea in the cold 
white moon, 

His thin face lifted to the flashing 
stars. 

He talk’d familiarly and face to face 

With the eternal God, in solemn 
night, 

Confronting Him with free and flip¬ 
pant air 

As one confronts a merchant o’er his 
counter, 

And in vehement blasphemy did 
say: 

“God, put aside this world—show me 
another! 

God, this world’s but a cheat—hand 
down another! 

I will not buy—not have it as a 
gift. 

Put this aside and hand me down 
another— 

Another, and another, still another, 

Till I have tried the fairest world that 
hangs 

Upon the walls and broad dome of 
your shop. 

For I am proud of soul and regal 
born, 

And will not have a cheap and cheat¬ 
ing world.” 

Don Carlos. 

The noble youth! So God gave 
him another? 


Lamonte. 

A bear, as in old time, came from 
the woods 

And tare him there upon that storm- 
swept cliff—- 

A grim and grizzled bear, like unto 
hunger. 

A tall ship sail’d adown the sea next 
morn, 

And, standing with his glass upon the 
prow, 

The captain saw a vulture on a cliff, 

Gorging, and pecking, stretching his 
long neck 

Bracing his raven plumes against the 
wind, 

Fretting the tempest with his sable 
feathers. 

A Young Poet ascends the mountain 
and approaches. 

Don Carlos. 

Ho! ho! whom have we here? 
Talk of the devil, 

And he’s at hand. Say, who are you, 
and whence? 

Poet. 

I am a poet, and dwell down by the 
sea. 

Don Carlos. 

A poet! a poet, forsooth! A hun¬ 
gry fool! 

Would you know what it means to be 
a poet now? 



ffita from Sna, 3 ©rama 


136 

It is to want a friend, to want a 
home, 

A country, money,—ay, to want a 
meal. 

It is not wise to be a poet now, 

For, oh, the world it has so modest 
grown 

It will not praise a poet to his face, 

But waits till he is dead some hundred 
years, 

Then uprears marbles cold and stupid 
as itself. 

[Poet rises to go .] 

Don Carlos. 

Why, what’s the haste? You’ll 
reach there soon enough. 

Poet. 

Reach where? 

Don Carlos. 

The inn to which all earthly roads 
do tend: 

The “neat apartments furnish’d—see 
within’’; 

The “furnish’d rooms for quiet, single 
gentlemen”; 

The narrow six-by-two where you 
will lie 

With cold blue nose up-pointing to 
the grass, 

Labell’d and box’d, and ready all for 
shipment. 

Poet (loosening hair and letting fall a 
mantle ). 


Ah me! my Don Carlos, look kindly 
upon me! 

With my hand on your arm and my 
dark brow lifted 

Full level to yours, do you not now 
know me? 

’Tis I, your Ina, whom you loved by 
the ocean, 

In the warm-spiced winds from the 
far Cathay. 

Don Carlos { bitterly ). 

With the smell of the dead man still 
upon you! 

Your dark hair wet from his death- 
damp forehead! 

You are not my Ina, for she is a 
memory, 

A marble chisell’d, in my heart’s dark 
chamber 

Set up for ever, and naught can 
change her; 

And you are a stranger, and the gulf 
between us 

Is wide as the plains, and as deep as 
Pacific. 

And now, good night. In your 
serape folded 

Hard by in the light of the pine-knot 
fire, 

Sleep you as sound as you will be 
welcome; 

And on the morrow—now mark me, 
madam— 

When tomorrow comes, why, you will 
turn you 

To the right or left as did Father 
Abram. 



€ben §s>o 


i37 


Good night, for ever and for aye, 
good by; 

My bitter is sweet and your truth is a 
lie. 

Ina (letting go his arm and stepping 
hack). 

Well, then! ’tis over, and ’tis well • 
thus ended; 

I am well escaped from my life’s 
devotion. 

The waters of bliss are a waste of 
bitterness; 

The day of joy I did join hands 
over, 

As a bow of promise when my years 
were weary, 

And set high up as a brazen serpent 

To look upon when I else had 
fainted 

In burning deserts, while you sipp’d 
ices 

And snowy sherbets, and roam’d 
unfetter’d, 

Is a deadly asp in the fruit and 
flowers 

That you in your bitterness now bear 
to me; 


But its fangs unfasten and it glides 
down from me, 

From a Cleopatra of cold white 
marble. 

I have but done what I would do 
over, 

Did I find one worthy of so much 
devotion; 

And, standing here with my clean 
hands folded 

Above a bosom whose crime is 
courage, 

The only regret that my heart dis¬ 
covers 

Is that I should do and have dared so 
greatly 

For the love ctf one who deserved so 
little. 

Nay! say no more, nor attempt to 
approach me! 

This ten feet line lying now between 
us 

Shall never be less while the land has 
measure. 

See! night is forgetting the east in the 
heavens; 

The birds pipe shrill and the beasts 
howl answer. 


EVEN SO 


Sierras , and eternal tents 
Of snow that flash o'er battlements 
Of mountains! My land of the sun, 
Am I not true? have I not done 
All things for thine, for thee alone, 
O sun-land , sea-land, thou mine own? 
Be my reward some little place 
To pitch my tent, some tree and vine 
Where I may sit with lifted face , 


And drink the sun as drinking wine: 
Where sweeps the Oregon, and where 
White storms carouse on perfumed 
air . 

In the shadows a-west of the sunset 
mountains, 

Where old-time giants had dwelt and 
peopled, 




Cbett &o 


138 

And built up cities and castled battle¬ 
ments, 

And rear’d up pillars that pierced the 
heavens, 

A poet dwelt of the book of Na¬ 
ture— 

An ardent lover of the pure and 
beautiful, 

Devoutest lover of the true and 
beautiful, 

Profoundest lover of the grand and 
beautiful— 

With heart all impulse, and intensest 
passion, 

Who believed in love as in God eter¬ 
nal— 

A dream while the waken’d world 
went over, 

An Indian summer of the singing 
seasons; 

And he sang wild songs like the wind 
in cedars, 

Was tempest-toss’d as the pines, yet 
ever 

As fix’d in faith as they in the moun¬ 
tains. 

He had heard of a name as one 
hears of a princess, 

Her glory had come unto him in 
stories; 

From afar he had look’d as entranced 
upon her; 

He gave her name to the wind in 
measures, 

And he heard her name in the deep¬ 
voiced cedars, 

And afar in the winds rolling on like 
the billows, 

Her name in the name of another for 
ever 


Gave all his numbers their grandest 
strophes; 

Enshrined her image in his heart’s 
high temple, 

And saint-like held her, too sacred 
for mortal. 

He came to fall like a king of the 
forest 

Caught in the strong storm arms of 
the wrestler; 

Forgetting his songs, his crags ai\d his 
mountains, 

And nearly his God, in his wild deep 
passion; 

And when he had won her and turn’d 
him homeward, 

With the holiest pledges love gives its 
lover, 

The mountain route was as strewn 
with roses. 

Can high love then be a thing un¬ 
holy, 

To make us better and bless’d su¬ 
premely? 

The day was fix’d for the feast and 
nuptials; 

He crazed with impatience at the 
tardy hours; 

He flew in the face of old Time as a 
tyrant; 

He had fought the days that stood 
still between them, 

Fought one by one, as you fight with a 
foeman, 

Had they been animate and sensate 
beings. 

At last then the hour came coldly 
forward. 




Cbett H>o 


139 


When Mars was trailing his lance on 
the mountains 

He rein’d his steed and look’d down 
in the canon 

To where she dwelt, with a heart of 
fire. 

He kiss’d his hand to the smoke slow 
curling, 

Then bow’d his head in devoutest 
blessing. 

His spotted courser did plunge and 
fret him 

Beneath his gay silken-fringed carona 

And toss his neck in a black mane 
banner’d; 

Then all afoam, plunging iron-footed, 

Dash’d him down with a wild im¬ 
patience. 

A coldness met him, like the breath 
of a cavern, 

As he joyously hasten’d across the 
threshold. 

She came, and coldly she spoke and 
scornful, 

In answer to warm and impulsive 
passion. 

All things did array them in shapes 
most hateful, 

And life did seem but a jest intolerable. 

He dared to question her why this 
estrangement: 

She spoke with a srange and stiff 
indifference, 

And bade him go on all alone life’s 
journey. 

Then stern and tall he did stand up 
before her, 

And gaze dark-brow’d through the 
low narrow casement, 


For a time, as if warring in thought 
with a passion; 

Then, crushing hard down the hot 
welling bitterness, 

He folded his form in a sullen silent¬ 
ness, 

And turned for ever away from her 
presence; 

Bearing his sorrow like some great 
burden, 

Like a black nightmare in his hot 
heart muffled; 

With his faith in the truth of woman 
broken. 


’Mid Theban pillars, where sang 
the Pindar, 

Breathing the breath of the Grecian 
islands, 

Breathing in spices and olive and 
myrtle, 

Counting the caravans, curl’d and 
snowy, 

Slow journeying over his head to 
Mecca 

Or the high Christ land of most holy 
memory, 

Counting the clouds through the 
boughs above him, 

That brush’d white marbles that time 
had chisel’d 

And rear’d as tombs on the great 
dead city, 

Letter’d with solemn but unread 
moral— 

A poet rested in the red-hot summer. 

He took no note of the things about 
him, 

But dream’d and counted the clouds 
above him; 



140 


Cben H>o 


His soul was troubled, and his sad 
heart’s Mecca 

Was a miner’s home far over the 
ocean, 

Banner’d by pines that did brush 
blue heaven. 

When the sun went down on the 
bronzed Morea, 

He read to himself from the lines of 
sorrow 

That came as a wail from the one he 
worshipp’d, 

Sent over the seas by an old compan¬ 
ion: 

They spoke no word of him, or re¬ 
membrance. 

And he was most sad, for he felt for¬ 
gotten, 

And said: “In the leaves of her fair 
heart’s album 

She has cover’d my face with the 
face of another. 

Let the great sea lift like a wall be¬ 
tween us, 

High-back’d, with his mane of white 
storms for ever— 

I shall learn to love, I shall wed my 
sorrow, 

I shall take as a spouse the days that 
are perish’d; 

I shall dwell in a land where the 
march of genius 

Made tracks in marble in the days of 
giants; 

I shall sit in the ruins where sat the 
Marius, 

Gray with the ghosts of the great 
departed.’’ 

And then he said in the solemn 
twilight . . . 


“Strangely wooing are yon worlds 
above us, 

Strangely beautiful is the Faith of 
Islam, 

Strangely sweet are the songs of 
Solomon, 

Strangely tender are the teachings of 
Jesus, 

Strangely cold is the sun on the moun¬ 
tains, 

Strangely mellow is the moon on old 
ruins, 

Strangely pleasant are the stolen 
waters, 

Strangely lighted is the North night 
region, 

Strangely strong are the streams in 
the ocean, 

Strangely true are the tales of the 
Orient, 

But stranger than all are the ways of 
women.” 

His head on his hands and his hands 
on the marble, 

Alone in the midnight he slept in the 
ruins; 

And a form was before him white 
mantled in moonlight, 

And bitter he said to the one he had 
worshipp’d— 

“Your hands in mine, your face, 
your eyes 

Look level into mine, and mine 

Are not abashed in anywise 

As eyes were in an elden syne. 

Perhaps the pulse is colder now, 

And blood comes tamer to the brow 

Because of hot blood long ago . . . 



Cbett i§>o 


Withdraw your hand? . . . Well, 
be it so, 

And turn your bent head slow side- 
wise, 

For recollections are as seas 

That come and go in tides, and these 

Are flood tides filling to the eyes. 

‘‘How strange that you above the 
vale 

And I below the mountain wall 
Should walk and meet! . . Why, 
you are pale! . . 

Strange meeting on the mountain 
fringe! . . 

.... More strange we ever met 
at all! ... . 

Tides come and go, we know their 
time; 

The moon, we know her wane or 
prime; 

But who knows how the heart may 
hinge? 

“You stand before me here to¬ 
night, 

But not beside me, not beside— 

Are beautiful, but not a bride. 

Some things I recollect aright, 
Though full a dozen years are done 
Since we two met one winter night— 
Since I was crush’d as by a fall; 

For I have watch’d and pray’d 
through all 

The shining circles of the sun. 

“I saw you where sad cedars wave; 
I sought you in the dewy eve 
When shining crickets thrill and 
grieve; 

You smiled, and I became a slave. 


141 

A slave! I worshipp’d you at night, 
When all the blue field blossom’d red 
With dewy roses overhead 
In sweet and delicate delight. 

I was devout. I knelt that night 
To Him who doeth all things well. 

I tried in vain to break the spell; 
My prison’d soul refused to rise 
And image saints in Paradise, 

While one was here before my eyes. 

“Some things are sooner marr’d 
than made. 

A frost fell on a soul that night, 

And one was black that erst was white. 
And you forget the place—the night! 
Forget that aught was done or said— 
Say this has pass’d a long decade— 
Say not a single tear was shed— 

Say you forget these little things! 

Is not your recollection loth? 

Well, little bees have bitter stings, 
And I remember for us both. 

“No, not a tear. Do men com¬ 
plain? 

The outer wound will show a stain, 
And we may shriek at idle pain; 

But pierce the heart, and not a word, 
Or wail, or sign, is seen or heard. 

“I did not blame—I do not blame, 
My wild heart turns to you the same, 
Such as it is; but oh, its meed 
Of faithfulness and trust and truth, 
And earnest confidence of youth, 

I caution, you, is small indeed. 

“I follow’d you, I worshipp’d you 
And I would follow, worship still; 
But if I felt the blight and chill 






142 


Cfocn H>o 


Of frosts in my uncheerful spring, 
And show it now in riper years 
In answer to this love you bring— 

In answer to this second love, 

This wail of an unmated dove, 

In cautious answer to your tears— 
You, you know who taught me dis¬ 
dain. 

But deem you I would deal you pain? 
I joy to know your heart is light, 

I journey glad to know it thus, 

And could I dare to make it less? 
Yours—you are day, but I am night. 

“God knows I would descend to¬ 
day 

Devoutly on my knees, and pray 
Your way might be one path of peace 
Through bending boughs and blos¬ 
som’d trees, 

And perfect bliss through roses fair; 
But know you, back—one long de¬ 
cade— 

How fervently, how fond I pray’d?— 
What was the answer to that prayer? 

“The tale is old, and often told 
And lived by more than you suppose— 
The fragrance of a summer rose 
Press’d down beneath the stubborn 
lid, 

When sun and song are hush’d and 
hid, 

And summer days are gray and old. 

“We parted so. Amid the bays 
And peaceful palms and song and 
shade 

Your cheerful feet in pleasure stray’d 
Through all the swift and shining 
days. 


“You made my way another way. 
You bade it should not be with thine—■ 
A fierce and cheerless route was mine: 
But we have met, tonight-—today. 

“You talk of tears—of bitter 
tears—• 

And tell of tyranny and wrong, 

And I re-live some stinging jeers, 
Back, far back, in the leaden years. 

A lane without a turn is long, 

I muse, and whistle a reply— 

Then bite my lips and crush a sigh. 

“You sympathize that I am sad, 

I sigh for you that you complain, 

I shake my yellow hair in vain, 

I laugh with lips, but am not glad. 

• •••••• 

. . . “His was a hot love of the 
hours, 

And love and lover both are flown; 
Now you walk, like a ghost, alone. 
He sipp’d your sunny lips, and he 
Took all their honey; now the bee 
Bends down the heads of other flowers 
And other lips lift up to kiss. . . . 
... I am not cruel, yet I find 
A savage solace for the mind 
And sweet delight in saying this. . . . 
Now you are silent, white, and you 
Lift up your hands as making sign, 
And your rich lips lie thin and blue 
And ashen . . . and you writhe, 
and you 

Breathe quick and tremble ... is 
it true 

The soul takes wounds, sheds blood 
like wine? 



JWprtfj 


i43 


. . . “You seem so most uncom¬ 
mon tall 

Against the lonely ghostly moon, 
That hurries homeward oversoon, 
And hides behind you and the pines; 
And your two hands hang cold and 
small, 

And your two thin arms lie like vines, 
Or winter moonbeams on a wall. 

. . . What if you be a weary ghost, 
And I but dream, and dream I wake? 
Then wake me not, and my mistake 
Is not so bad; let’s make the most 
Of all we get, asleep, awake— 

And waste not one sweet thing at all. 

God knows that, at the best, life 
brings 

The soul’s share so exceeding small 
We weary for some better things, 
And hunger even unto death. 

Laugh loud, be glad with ready breath, 
For after all are joy and grief 
Not merely matters of belief? 

And what is certain after all, 

But death, delightful, patient death? 
The cool and perfect, peaceful sleep, 
Without one tossing hand, or deep 
Sad sigh and catching in of breath! 

“ Be satisfied. The price of breath 
Is paid in toll. But knowledge is 
Bought only with a weary care, 


And wisdom means a world of pain. . . 
Well, we have suffered, will again, 
And we can work and wait and bear, 
Strong in the certainty of bliss. 
Death is delightful: after death 
Breaks in the dawn of perfect day. 
Let question he who will: the May 
Throws fragrance far beyond the wall. 

“Death is delightful. Death is 
dawn. 

Fame is not much, love is not much, 
Yet what else is there worth the touch 
Of lifted hand with dagger drawn? 

So surely life is little worth: 
Therefore I say, Look up; therefore 
I say One little star has more 
Bright gold than all the earth of earth. 

“Yea, we must labor, plant to reap— 
Life knows no folding up of hands— 
Must plow the soul, as plowing lands, 
In furrows fashion’d strong and deep. 
Life has its lesson. Let us learn 
The hard, long lesson from the birth, 
And be content; stand breast to 
breast, 

And bear and battle till the rest. 

Yet I look to yon stars, and say: 
Thank Christ, ye are so far away 
That when I win you I can turn 
And look, and see no sign of earth. 


MYRRH 


Life knows no dead so beautiful 
As is the white cold coffin'd past; 
This I may love nor be betray'd: 


The dead are faithful to the last. 
I am not spouseless—I have wed 
A memory—a life that's dead. 







144 


iUlprrfj 


Farewell! for here the ways at last 
Divide—diverge, like delta’d Nile, 
Which after desert dangers pass’d 
Of many and many a thousand mile, 
As constant as a column stone, 

Seeks out the sea, divorced—alone. 

And you and I have buried Love, 

A red seal on the coffin’s lid; 

The clerk below, the court above, 
Pronounce it dead: the corpse is hid 
And I who never cross’d your will 
Consent . . . that you may have it 
still. 

Farewell! a sad word easy said 
And easy sung, I think, by some. . . 
... I clutch’d my hands, I turn’d 
my head 

In my endeavor and was dumb; 

And when I should have said, Fare¬ 
well, 

I only murmur’d, “This is hell.” 

What recks it now, whose was the 
blame? 

But call it mine; for better used 
Am I to wrong and cold disdain, 

Can better bear to be accused 
Of all that wears the shape of shame, 
Than have you bear one touch of 
blame. 

I set my face for power and place, 
My soul is toned to sullenness, 

My heart holds not one sign nor trace 
Of love, or trust, or tenderness. 

But you—your years of happiness 
God knows I would not make them 
less. 


And you will come some summer 
eve, 

When wheels the white moon on her 
track, 

And hear the plaintive night-bird 
grieve, 

And heed the crickets clad in black; 
Alone—not far—a little spell, 

And say, “Well, yes, he loved me 
well”; 

And sigh, “Well, yes, I mind me 
now, 

None were so bravely true as he; 
And yet his love was tame somehow, 
It was so truly true to me; 

I wish’d his patient love had less 
Of worship and of tenderness: 

“ I wish it still, for thus alone 
There comes a keen reproach or pain, 
A feeling I dislike to own; 

Half yearnings for his voice again, 
Half longing for his earnest gaze, 

To know him mine always—always.” 

I make no murmur; steady, calm, 
Sphinx-like I gaze on days ahead. 
No wooing word, no pressing palm, 
No sealing love with lips seal-red, 

No waiting for some dusk or dawn, 
No sacred hour . . . all are gone. 

I go alone, no little hands 
To lead me from forbidden ways, 

No little voice in other lands 
To cheer through all the weary days, 
Yet these are yours, and that to me 

Is much indeed.So let it 

be . . . 





jftlprrf) 


i45 


.... A last look from my moun¬ 
tain wall. . . . 

I watch the red sun wed the sea 
Beside your home . . . the tides 
will fall 

And rise, but nevermore shall we 
Stand hand in hand and watch them 
flow, 

As we once stood. . . . Christ! 
this is so! 

But, when the stately sea comes in 
With measured tread and mouth 
afoam, 

My darling cries above the din, 

And asks, “Has father yet come 
home? ” 

Then look into the peaceful sky, 

And answer, gently, “By and by.” 

One deep spring in a desert sand, 
One moss’d and mystic pyramid, 

A lonely palm on either hand, 

A fountain in a forest hid, 

Are all my life has realized 
Of all I cherish’d, all I prized: 

Of all I dream’d in early youth 
Of love by streams and love-lit ways, 
While my heart held its type of truth 
Through all the tropic golden days, 
And I the oak, and you the vine, 
Clung palm in palm through cloud or 
shine. 

Some time when clouds hang over¬ 
head, 

(What weary skies without one 
cloud!) 

You may muse on this love that’s dead, 
Muse calm when not so cold or proud, 


And say, “At last it comes to me, 
That none was ever true as he.” 

My sin was that I loved too much— 
But I enlisted for the war, 

Till we the deep-sea shore should 
touch, 

Beyond Atlanta—near or far— 

And truer soldier never yet 
Bore shining sword or bayonet. 

I did not blame you—do not blame. 
The stormy elements of soul 
That I did scorn to tone or tame, 

Or bind down unto dull control 
In full fierce youth, they are all yours, 
With all their folly and their force. 

God keep you pure, oh, very pure, 
God give you grace to dare and do; 
God give you courage to endure 
The all He may demand of you,— 
Keep time-frosts from your raven 
hair, 

And your young heart without a care. 

I make no murmur nor complain; 
Above me are the stars and blue 
Alluring far to grand refrain; 

Before, the beautiful and true, 

To love or hate, to win or lose; 

Lo! I will now arise, and choose. 

But should you sometime read a 
sign, 

In isles of song beyond the brine, 
Then you will think a time, and you 
Will turn and say, “He once was 
mine, 

Was all my own; his smiles, his tears 
Were mine—were mine for years and 
years.” 


10 



146 


Jdurn# 

BURNS 


Eld Druid oaks of Ayr, 

Precepts! Poems! Pages! 

Lessons! Leaves, and Volumes! 
Arches! Pillars! Columns 
hi corridors of ages! 

Grand patriarchal sages 
Lifting palms in prayer! 

The Druid hears are drifting 
And shifting to and fro, 

In gentle breezes lifting, 

That bat-like come and go. 

The while the moon is sifting 
A sheen of shining snow 
On all these blossoms lifting 
Their blue eyes from below. 

No, ’tis not phantoms walking 
That you hear rustling there, 

But bearded Druids talking, 

A nd turning leaves in prayer. 

No, not a night-bird singing 

Nor breeze the broad bough swinging, 

But that bough holds a censer, 

A nd swings it to and fro. 

’Tis Sunday eve, remember, 

That's why they chant so low. 

I linger in the autumn noon, 

I listen to the partridge call, 

I watch the yellow leaflets fall 
And drift adown the dimpled Doon. 

I lean me o’er the ivy-grown 
Auld brig, where Vandal tourists’ 
tools 

Have ribb’d out names that would be 
known, 

Are known—known as a herd of fools. 


Down Ailsa Craig the sun declines, 
With lances level’d here and there— 
The tinted thorns! the trailing vines! 
O braes of Doon! so fond, so fair! 

So passing fair, so more than fond! 
The Poet’s place of birth beyond, 
Beyond the mellow bells of Ayr! 

I hear the milk-maid’s twilight 
song 

Come bravely through the storm- 
bent oaks; 

Beyond, the white surf’s sullen 
strokes 

Beat in a chorus deep and strong; 

I hear the sounding forge afar, 

And rush and rumble of the car, 

The steady tinkle of the bell 
Of lazy, leaden, home-bound cows 
That stop to bellow and to browse; 
I breathe the soft sea-wind as well. 

O Burns! where bid? where bide 
ye now? 

Where rest you in this night’s full 
noon, 

Great master of the pen and plow ? 
Might you not on yon slanting beam 
Of moonlight kneeling to the Doon, 
Descend once to this hallow’d stream? 
Sure yon stars yield enough of light 
For heaven to spare your face one 
night. 

O Burns! another name for song, 
Another name for passion—pride; 
For love and poesy allied; 

For strangely blended right and 
wrong. 



JBprott 


H7 


I picture you as one who kneel’d 
A stranger at his own hearthstone; 
One knowing all, yet all unknown, 
One seeing all, yet all conceal’d; 

The fitful years you linger’d here 
A lease of peril and of pain; 

And I am thankful yet again 
The gods did love you, plowman! 
peer! 

In all your own and other lands, 

I hear your touching songs of cheer; 
The lowly peasant, lordly peer, 
Above your honor’d dust strike hands. 

A touch of tenderness is shown 
In this unselfish love of Ayr, 

And it is well, you earn’d it fair; 

For all unhelmeted, alone, 

You proved a plowman’s honest 
claim 


To battle in the lists of fame; 

You earn’d it as a warrior earns 
His laurels fighting for his land, 

And died—it was your right to go. 

O eloquence of silent woe! 

The Master leaning, reach’d a hand, 
And whisper’d," It is finish’d, Burns!” 

O sad, sweet singer of a Spring! 
Yours was a chill, uncheerful May, 
And you knew no full days of June; 
You ran too swiftly up the way, 

And wearied soon, so over-soon! 

You sang in weariness and woe; 

You falter’d, and God heard you sing, 
Then touch’d your hand and led you 
so, 

You found life’s hill-top low, so low, 
You cross’d its summit long ere noon. 
Thus sooner than one would suppose 
Some weary feet will find repose. 


BYRON 


In men whom men condemn as ill 
I find so much of goodness still, 

In men whom men pronounce divine 
I find so much of sin and blot, 

I do not dare to draw a line 
Between the two, where God has not. 

O cold and cruel Nottingham! 

In disappointment and in tears, 

Sad, lost, and lonely, here I am 
To question, "Is this Nottingham 
Of which I dream’d for years and 
years?” 

I seek in vain for name or sign 
Of him who made this mold a shrine, 
A Mecca to the fair and fond 
Beyond the seas, and still beyond. 


Where white clouds crush their 
drooping wings 

Against my snow-crown’d battle¬ 
ments, 

And peaks that flash like silver 
tents; 

Where Sacramento’s fountain springs, 
And proud Columbia frets his shore 
Of somber, boundless wood and wold, 
And lifts his yellow sands of gold 
In plaintive murmurs evermore; 
Where snowy dimpled Tahoe smiles, 
And where white breakers from the 
sea, 

In solid phalanx knee to knee, 
Surround the calm Pacific Isles, 
Then run and reach unto the land 




148 


JSpron 


And spread their thin palms on the 
sand,— 

Is he supreme—there understood: 
The free can understand the free; 
The brave and good the brave and 
good. 

Yea, he did sin; who hath reveal’d 
That he was more than man, or less? 
Yet sinn’d no more; but less conceal’d 
Than they who cloak’d their follies 
o’er, 

And then cast stones in his distress. 
He scorn’d to make the good seem 
more, 

Or make the bitter sin seem less. 

And so his very manliness 
The seeds of persecution bore. 

When all his songs and fervid love 
Brought back no olive branch or dove, 
Or love or trust from any one, 

Proud, all unpitied and alone 
He lived to make himself unknown, 
Disdaining love and yielding none. 
Like some high-lifted sea-girt stone 
That could not stoop, but all the days, 
With proud brow fronted to the 
breeze, 

Felt seas blown from the south, and 
seas 

Blown from the north, and many 
ways, 

He stood—a solitary light 
In stormy seas and settled night— 
Then fell, but stirr’d the seas as far 
As winds and waves and waters are. 

The meek-eyed stars are cold and 
white 

And steady, fix’d for all the years; 


The comet burns the wings of night, 
And dazzles elements and spheres, 
Then dies in beauty and a blaze 
Of light, blown far through other 
days. 

The poet’s passion, sense of pride, 
His boundless love, the wooing throng 
Of sweet temptations that betide 
The warm and wayward child of song, 
The world knows not: I lift a hand 
To ye who know, who understand. 

• •••••• 

The ancient Abbey’s breast is 
broad, 

And stout her massive walls of stone; 
But let him lie, repose alone 
Ungather’d with the great of God, 
In dust, by his fierce fellow man. 
Some one, some day, loud voiced will 
speak 

And say the broad breast was not 
broad, 

The walls of stone were all too weak 
To hold his proud dust, in their plan; 
The hollow of God’s great right hand 
Receives it; let it rest with God. 

In sad but beautiful decay 
Gray Hucknall kneels into the dust, 
And, cherishing her sacred trust, 
Does blend her clay with lordly clay. 

No sign or cryptic stone or cross 
Unto the passing world has said, 
“He died, and we deplore his loss.” 
No sound of sandall’d pilgrim’s tread 
Disturbs the pilgrim’s peaceful rest, 
Or frets the proud, impatient breast, 
The bat flits through the broken pane. 



2 Stft Carbon’s &foe 


149 


The black swift swallow gathers moss, 
And builds in peace above his head, 
Then goes, then comes, and builds 
again. 

And it is well; not otherwise 
Would he, the grand sad singer, will. 


The serene peace of paradise 
He sought—’tis his—the storm is 
still. 

Secure in his eternal fame, 

And blended pity and respect, 

He does not feel the cold neglect,— 
And England does not fear the shame. 


KIT CARSON’S RIDE 


Room! room to turn round in, to breathe 
and be free, 

To grow to be giant, to sail as at sea 

With the speed of the wind on a steed 
with his mane 

To the wind, without pathway or route 
or a rein. 

Room! room to be free where the white 
border'd sea 

Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless 
as he; 

Where the buffalo come like a cloud on 
the plain, 

Pouring on like the tide of a storm- 
driven main, 

And the lodge of the hunter to friend or 
to foe 

Offers rest; and unquestion'd you come 
or you go. 

My plains of America! Seas of wild 
lands! 

From a land in the seas in a raiment of 
foam, 

That has .reached to a stranger the wel¬ 
come of home, 

I turn to you, lean to you, lift you my 
hands. 

Run? Run? See this flank, sir, and 
I do iove him so! 


But he’s blind, badger blind. Whoa, 
Pache, boy, whoa. 

No, you wouldn’t believe it to look at 
his eyes, 

But he’s blind, badger blind, and it 
happen’d this wise: 

“We lay in the grass and the sun¬ 
burnt clover 

That spread on the ground like a great 
brown cover 

Northward and southward, and west 
and away 

To the Brazos, where our lodges lay, 

One broad and unbroken level of 
brown. 

We were waiting the curtains of night 
to come down 

To cover us trio and conceal our flight 

With my brown bride, won from an 
Indian town 

That lay in the rear the full ride of a 
night. 

“We lounged in the grass—her eyes 
were in mine, 

And her hands on my knee, and her 
hair was as wine 

In its wealth and its flood, pouring on 
and all over 






Carfiott’s JUbe 


150 

Her bosom wine red, and press'd 
never by one. 

Her touch was. as warm as the tinge 
of the clover 

Burnt brown as it reach’d to the kiss 
of the sun. 

Her words they were low as the lute- 
throated dove, 

And as laden with love as the heart 
when it beats 

In its hot, eager answer to earliest 
love, 

Or the bee hurried home by its bur¬ 
then of sweets. 

“We lay low in the grass on the 
broad plain levels, 

Old Revels and I, and my stolen 
brown bride; 

‘Forty full miles if a foot, and the 
devils 

Of red Comanches are hot on the 
track 

When once they strike it. Let the sun 
go down 

Soon, very soon,’ muttered bearded 
old Revels 

As he peer’d at the sun, lying low on 
his back, 

Holding fast to his lasso. Then he 
jerk’d at his steed 

And he sprang to his feet, and glanced 
swiftly around, 

And then dropp’d, as if shot, with an 
ear to the ground; 

Then again to his feet, and to me, to 
my bride, 

While his eyes were like flame, his 
face like a shroud, 

His form like a king, and his beard 
like a cloud, 


And his voice loud and shrill, as both 
trumpet and reed,— 

‘ Pull, pull in your lassoes, and bridle 

to steed, 

And speed you if ever for life you 
would speed. 

Aye, ride for your lives, for your lives 
you must ride! 

For the plain is aflame, the prairie on 
fire, 

And the feet of wild horses hard flying 
before 

I heard like a sea breaking high on the 
shore, 

While the buffalo come like a surge of 
the sea, 

Driven far by the flame, driving fast 
on us three 

As a hurricane comes, crushing palms 
in his ire.’ 

“We drew in the lassoes, seized 
saddle and rein, 

Threw them on, cinched them on, 
cinched them over again, 

And again drew the girth; and spring 
we to horse, 

With head to the Brazos, with a sound 
in the air 

Like the surge of a sea, with a flash in 
the eye, 

From that red wall of flame reaching 
up to the sky; 

A red ’wall of flame and a black rolling 

sea 

Rushing fast upon us, as the wind 
sweeping free 

And afar from the desert blown hol¬ 
low and hoarse. 

“Not a word, not a wail from a lip 
was let fall, 




Itft CarSon’g IXtOe 


We broke not a whisper, we breathed 
not a prayer, 

There was work to be done, there was 
death in the air, 

And the chance was as one to a thou¬ 
sand for all. 

“Twenty miles! . . . thirty miles! 

... a dim distant speck.... 

Then a long reaching line, and the 
Brazos in sight! 

And I rose in my seat with a shout of 
delight. 

I stood in my stirrup, and look’d to 
my right— 

But Revels was gone; I glanced by 
my shoulder 

And saw his horse stagger; I saw his 
head drooping 

Hard down on his breast, and his 
naked breast stooping 

Low down to the mane, as so swifter 
and bolder 

Ran reaching out for us the red-footed 
fire. 

He rode neck to neck with a buffalo 
bull, 

That made the earth shake where he 
came in his course, 

The monarch of millions, with shaggy 
mane full 

Of smoke and of dust, and it shook 
with desire 


151 

Of battle, with rage and with bellow¬ 
ing hoarse. 

His keen, crooked horns, through the 
storm of his mane, 

Like black lances lifted and lifted 
again; 

And I looked but this once, for the 
fire licked through, 

And Revels was gone, as we rode two 
and two. 

“I look’d to my left then—and 
nose, neck, and shoulder 

Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to 
my thighs, 

And up through the black blowing veil 
of her hair 

Did beam full in mine her two mar¬ 
velous eyes, 

With a longing and love yet a look of 
despair 

And of pity for me, as she felt the 
smoke fold her, 

And flames leaping far for her glorious 
hair. 

Her sinking horse falter’d, plunged, 
fell and was gone 

As I reach’d through the flame and I 
bore her still on. 

On! into the Brazos, she, Pacheand I— 

Poor, burnt, blinded Pache. I love 
him .... 

That’s why." 








FALLEN LEAVES, 1873 


Some fugitive lines that allure us no more , 

Some fragments that fell to the sea out of time; 
Unfinish'd and guiltless of thought as of rhyme , 
Thrown now on the world like waifs on the shore. 


153 





PALM LEAVES 


Thatch of palm and a patch of 
clover, 

Breath of balm in a field of brown, 
The clouds blew up and the birds flew 
over, 

And I look’d upward; but who 
look’d down? 

Who was true in the test that tried 
us ? 

Who was it mock’d? Who now 
may mourn 


The loss of a love that a cross denied 
us, 

With folded hands and a heart 
forlorn? 

God forgive us when the fair forget us. 

The worth of a smile, the weight of 
a tear, 

Why, who can measure? The fates 
beset us. 

We laugh a moment; we mourn a 
year. 


THOMAS OF TIGRE 


King of Tigre, comrade true, 
Where in all thine isles art thou? 
Sailing on Fonseca blue? 

Nearing Amapala now? 

King of Tigre, where art thou? 

Battling for Antilles’ queen? 

Saber hilt, or olive bough? 

Crown of dust, or laurel green? 
Roving love, or marriage vow? 

King and comrade, where art thou? 


Sailing on Pacific seas? 

Pitching tent in Pimo now? 
Underneath magnolia trees? 
Thatch of palm, or cedar bough? 
Soldier singer, where art thou? 

Coasting on the Oregon? 

Saddle bow, or birchen prow? 
Round the Isles of Amazon? 
Pampas, plain, or mountain brow? 
Prince of rovers, where art thou? 


YOSEMITE 


Sound!sound!sound! 

O colossal walls and crown’d 
In one eternal thunder! 

Sound!sound!sound! 

O ye oceans overhead, 

While we walk, subdued in wonder, 
In the ferns and grasses, under 
And beside the swift Merced! 


Fret! fret! fret! 

Streaming, sounding banners, set 
On the giant granite castles 
In the clouds and in the snow! 
But the foe he comes not yet,— 
We are loyal, valiant vassals, 
And we touch the trailing tassels 
Of the banners far below. 


155 





3Seab m tfje Sierras 


156 

Surge! surge! surge! 

From the white Sierra’s verge, 

To the very valley blossom. 

Surge! surge! surge! 

Yet the song-bird builds a home, 

And the mossy branches cross them, 
And the tasselled tree-tops toss them 
In the clouds of falling foam. 

Sweep! sweep! sweep! 

O ye heaven-born and deep, 

In one dread, unbroken chorus! 

We may wonder or may weep,— 


We may wait on God before us; 

We may shout or lift a hand,— 

We may bow down and deplore us, 
But may never understand. 

Beat! beat! beat! 

We advance, but would retreat 
From this restless, broken breast 
Of the earth in a convulsion. 

We would rest, but dare not rest, 

For the angel of expulsion 
From this Paradise below 
Waves us onward and ... we go. 


DEAD IN THE SIERRAS 


His footprints have failed us, 
Where berries are red, 

And madronos are rankest. 

The hunter is dead! 

The grizzly may pass 
By his half-open door; 

May pass and repass 
On his path, as of yore; 

The panther may crouch 
In the leaves on his limb; 

May scream and may scream,— 

It is nothing to him. 

IN SOUTHERN 

Where the cocoa and cactus are neigh¬ 
bors, 

Where the fig and the fir-tree are 
one; 

Where the brave corn is lifting bent 
sabres 

And flashing them far in the sun; 


Prone, bearded, and breasted 
Like columns of stone; 

And tall as a pine— 

As a pine overthrown! 

His camp-fires gone, 

What else can be done 
Than let him sleep on 
Till the light of the sun? 

Ay, tombless! what of it? 

Marble is dust, 

Cold and repellent; 

And iron is rust. 

CALIFORNIA 

Where maidens blush red in their 

tresses 

Of night, and retreat to advance, 
And the dark, sweeping eyelash ex¬ 
presses 

Deep passion, half hush’d in a 
trance; 






Wjo ibap? 


157 


Where the fig is in leaf, where the 
blossom 

Of orange is fragrant as fair,— 

Santa Barbara’s balm in the bosom, 

Her sunny, soft winds in the hair; 

Where the grape is most luscious; 
where laden 

Long branches bend double with 
gold; 

Los Angelos leans like a maiden, 

Red, blushing, half shy, and half 
bold. 

Where passion was born, and where 
poets 

Are deeper in silence than song, 


A love knows a love, and may know 
its 

Reward, yet may never know 
wrong. 

Where passion was born and where 
blushes 

Gave birth to my songs of the 
South, 

And a song is a love-tale, and rushes, 
Unchid, through the red of the 
mouth; 

Where an Adam in Eden reposes, 

I repose, I am glad, and take wine 

In the clambering, redolent roses, 
And under my fig and my vine. 


WHO SHALL SAY? 


A sinking sun, a sky of red, 

In bars and banners overhead, 

And blown apart like curtains drawn; 
Afar a-sea a blowing sail 
That shall go down before the dawn; 
And they are passion-toss’d and 
pale, 

The two that stand and look alone 
And silent, as two shafts of stone 
Set head and foot above the dead. 

They watch the ship, the weary sun, 
The banner’d streamers every one, 
Till darkness hides them in her hair. 

A LOV 

If earth is an oyster, love is the pearl, 
As pure as pure caresses; 

Then loosen the gold of your hair, my 
girl, 

And hide my pearl in your tresses. 


The winds come in as cold as death, 
And not a palm above the pair 
To lift a lance or break a breath. 

The hollow of the ocean fills 
Like sounding hollow halls of stone, 
And not a banner streams above; 
The sea is set in snowy hills. 

The ship is lost. The winds are blown 
Unheeded now; yet who shall say: 
“We had been wiser so than they 
Who wept and watch’d the parting 
sail 

In silence; mute with sorrow, pale 
With weeping for departed love”? 

SONG 

So, coral to coral and pearl to 
pearl, 

And a cloud of curls above me, 

O bury me deep, my beautiful girl, 
And then confess you love me. 





158 


I)n i?an Jfranctsco 


The world goes over my beautiful 
girl 

In glitter and gold and odor of roses, 
In eddies of splendor, in oceans of 
pearl, 

But here the heaven reposes. . . . 


The world is wide; men go their ways, 
But love it is wise, and of all the 
hours, 

And of all the beautiful sun-bom days, 
It sips their sweets as the bees sip 
flowers. 


IN SAN FRANCISCO 


Lo! here sit we mid the sun-down seas 

And the white sierras. The swift, 
sweet breeze 

Is about us here; and a sky so fair 

Is bending above in its azaline 
hue, 

That you gaze and you gaze in 
delight, and you 

See God and the portals of heaven 
there. 

Yea, here sit we where the white 
ships ride 

In the mom, made glad and forget¬ 
ful of night, 

The white and the brown men side by 
side 

In search of the truth, and be¬ 
trothed to the right; 

For these are the idols, and only these, 

Of men that abide by the sun-down 
seas. 


The brown brave hand of the har 
vester, 

The delicate hand of the prince un¬ 
tried, 

The rough hard hand of the carpenter, 
They are all upheld with an equal 
pride; 

And the prize it is his to be crown’d or 
blest, 

Prince or peon, who bears him best. 

Yea, here sit we by the golden gate, 
Not demanding much, but inviting 
you all, 

Nor publishing loud, but daring to 
wait, 

And great in much that the days 
deem small; 

And the gate it is God’s, to Cathay, 
Japan,— 

And who shall shut it in the face of 
man? 


SHADOWS OF SHASTA 


In the place where the grizzly reposes, 
Under peaks where a right is a 
wrong, 

I have memories richer than roses, 
Sweet echoes more sweet than a 
song; 


Sounds sweet as the voice of a 
singer 

Made sacred with sorrows unsaid, 
And a love that implores me to linger 
For the love of dead days and their 
dead. 






St jg>ea 


i59 


But I turn, throwing kisses, return¬ 
ing 

To strife and to turbulent men, 

AT 

We part as ships on a pathless 
main, 

Gayly enough, for the sense of pain 
Is asleep at first: but ghosts will arise 

When we would repose, and the 
forms will come 

And walk when we walk, and will 
not be dumb, 

Nor yet forget with their wakeful 
eyes. 

When we most need rest, and the 
perfect sleep, 


As to learn to be wise, as unlearning 
All things that were manliest 
then. 

SEA 

Some hand will reach from the 
dark, and keep 

The curtains drawn and the pillows 
toss’d 

Like a tide of foam; and one will say 

At night,—O, Heaven, that it were 
day! 

And one by night through the 
misty tears 

Will say,—O, Heaven, the days 
are years, 

And I would to Heaven that the 
waves were cross’d. 


A MEMORY OF SANTA BARBARA 


Yea, Santa Barbara is fair; 

A sunny clime and sweet to touch, 
For tamer men of gentler mien, 

But as for me—another scene. 

A land below the Alps I know, 

Set well with grapes and girt with 
much 

Of woodland beauty; I shall share 
My rides by night below the light 
Of Mauna Loa, ride below 
The steep and starry Hebron height; 
Shall lift my hands in many lands, 
See South Sea palm, see Northland 
fir, 

See white-wing’d swans, see red-bill’d 
doves; 

See many lands and many loves, 

But never more the face of her. 


And what her name or where the 
place 

Of her who makes my Mecca’s prayer, 
Concerns you not; not any trace 
Of entrance to my temple's shrine 
Remains. The memory is mine, 
And none shall pass the portals there. 

The present! take it, hold it thine, 
But that one hour out from all 
The years that are, or yet shall fall, 
I pluck it out, I name it mine, 

And whistle by the rest, and laugh 
To see it blown about as chaff; 

That hour bound in sunny sheaves, 
With tassell’d shocks of golden shine, 
That hour, wound in scarlet leaves, 
Is mine. I stretch a hand and swear 






i6o Summer 

An oath that breaks into a prayer; 

By heaven, it is wholly mine! 

I see the gold and purple gleam 
Of autumn leaves, a reach of seas, 

A silent rider like a dream 
Moves by, a mist of mysteries, 

And these are mine, and only these, 
Yet they be more in my esteem, 

Than silver’d sails on coral’d seas. 


jftosts; 

Let red-leaf’d boughs sweet fruits 
bestow, 

Let fame of foreign lands be mine, 
Let blame of faithless men befall; 

It matters nothing; over all, 

One hour arches like a bow 
Of promise bent in many hues, 

That tide nor time shall bid de¬ 
cline; 

Or storms of all the years refuse. 


SUMMER FROSTS 


Frosts of an hour! Fruits of a 
season! 

Who foresees them? Slain in a 
day, 

The loves of a lustrum. Who shall 
say 

The heart has sense or the soul has 
reason? 


. . . One not knowing and one not 
caring. 

. . . Leaves in their pathway. 
Let them part; 

She with the gifts of a gracious bear¬ 
ing, 

He with the pangs of a passionate 
heart. 


SIERRAS ADIOS 


With the buckler and sword into 
battle 

I moved, I was matchless and 
strong; 

I stood in the rush and the rattle 

Of shot, and the spirit of song 
Was upon me; and youthful and 
splendid 

My armor flashed far in the sun 
As I sang of my land. It is ended, 

And all has been done, and undone. 

I descend with my dead in the 
trenches, 

To-night I bend down on the plain 


In the dark, and a memory wrenches 
The soul; I turn up to the rain 
The cold and beautiful faces, 

Ay, faces forbidden for years, 
Turn’d up to my face with the traces 
Of blood to the white rain of 
tears. 

Count backward the years on your 
fingers, 

While forward rides yonder white 
moon, 

T ill the soul turns aside, and it lingers 
By a grave that was bom of a 
June; 





&imag £Toiog 


161 


By the grave of a soul, where the 
grasses 

Are tangled as witch-woven hair; 

Where footprints are not, and wdiere 
passes 

Not any thing known anywhere; 

By a grave without tombstone or 
token, 

At a tomb where not fern leaf or 
fir, 

Root or branch, was once bended or 
broken, 

To bestow there the body of her; 

For it lives, and the soul perish’d 
only, 

And alone in that land, with these 
hands, 

Did I lay the dead soul, and all lonely 

Does it lie to this day in the sands. 

Lo! a wild little maiden with tresses 

Of gold on the wind of the hills; 

Ay, a wise little maiden that guesses 

Some good in the cruelest ills; 

And a babe with its baby-fists 
doubled, 

And thrust to my beard, and with¬ 
in, 

As he laughs like a fountain half- 
troubled, 

When my finger chucks under his 
chin. 

Should the dead not decay, when the 
culture 

Of fields be resumed in the May? 


Lo! the days are dark-wing’d as the 
vulture! 

Let them swoop, then, and bear 
them away: 

By the walks let me cherish red 
flowers, 

By the wall teach one tendril to 
run; 

Lest I wake, and I watch all the hours 
I shall ever see under the sun. 

It is well, may be so, to bear losses, 
And to bend and bow down to the 
rod; 

If the scarlet bars and the crosses 
Be but rounds up the ladder to 
God. 

But this mocking of men! Ah, that 
enters 

The marrow! the murmurs that 
swell 

To reproach for my song-love, that 
centres, 

Vast land, upon thee, are not well. 

And I go, thanking God in my going, 
That an ocean flows stormy and 
deep, 

And yet gentler to me is its flowing 
Than the storm that forbids me to 
sleep. 

And I go, thanking God, with hands 
lifted, 

That a land lies beyond where the 
free 

And the gentle of heart and the gifted 
Of soul have a home in the sea. 









BY THE SUN-DOWN SEAS, 1873 




















OYE-AGUA: OREGON 


My brave world-builders of the West! 
Why, who doth know ye? Who shall 
know 

But I, that on thy peaks of snow 
Brake bread the first? Who loves ye 
best? 

Who holds ye still, of more stern worth 
Then all proud peoples of the earth? 


Yea, I, the rhymer of wild rhymes, 
Indifferent of blame or praise, 

Still sing of ye, as one who plays 
The same sweet air in all strange 
climes — 

The same wild, piercing highland 
air, 

Because — because, his heart is there. 


SIERRA GRANDE DEL NORTE 


Like fragments of an uncompleted 
world, 

From bleak Alaska, bound in ice and 
spray, 

To where the peaks of Darien lie 
curl’d 

In clouds, the broken lands loom bold 
and gray. 

The seamen nearing San Francisco Bay 

Forget the compass here; with sturdy 
hand 

They seize the wheel, look up, then 
bravely lay 

The ship to shore by rugged peaks 
that stand 

The stem and proud patrician fathers 
of the land. 

They stand white stairs of heaven, 
—stand a line 

Of lifting, endless, and eternal white. 

They look upon the far and flashing 
brine. 


Upon the boundless plains, the broken 
height 

Of Kamiakin’s battlements. The 
flight 

Of time is underneath their untopp’d 
towers. 

They seem to push aside the moon at 
night, 

To jostle and to loose the stars. The 
flowers 

Of heaven fall about their brows in 
shining showers. 

They stand in line of lifted snowy 
isles 

High held above the toss’d and 
tumbled sea,— 

A sea of wood in wild unmeasured 
miles: 

White pyramids of Faith where man 
is free; 

White monuments of Hope that yet 
shall be 

165 





166 €xobus 1 

The mounts of matchless and im¬ 
mortal song . . . 

I look far down the hollow days; I see 

The bearded prophets, simple-soul’d 
and strong, 

That strike the sounding harp and 
thrill the heeding throng. 

Serene and satisfied! supreme! as 
lone 

As God, they loom like God's arch¬ 
angels churl’d; 

EXODUS F< 

A tale half told and hardly under¬ 
stood ; 

The talk of bearded men that chanced 
to meet, 

That lean’d on long quaint rifles in 
the wood, 

That look’d in fellow faces, spoke 
discreet 

And low, as half in doubt and in 
defeat 

Of hope; a tale it was of lands of gold 

That lay below the sun. Wild¬ 
wing’d and fleet 

It spread among the swift Missouri’s 
bold 

Unbridled men, and reach’d to where 
Ohio roll’d. 

Then long chain’d lines of yoked 
and patient steers; 

Then long white trains that pointed 
to the west, 

Beyond the savage west; the hopes 
and fears 

Of blunt, untutor’d men, who hardly 
guess’d 


ir Oregon 

They look as cold as kings upon a 
throne; 

The mantling wings of night are 
crush’d and curl’d 

As feathers curl. The elements are 
hurl’d 

From off their bosoms, and are bidden 
go, 

Like evil spirits, to an under-world. 

They stretch from Cariboo to Mexico, 

A line of battle-tents in everlasting 
snow. 

R OREGON 

Their course; the brave and silent 
women, dress’d 

In homely spun attire, the boys in 
bands, 

The cheery babes that laugh’d at all, 
and bless’d 

The doubting hearts, with laughing 
lifted hands! . . . 

What exodus for far untraversed 
lands! 

The Plains! The shouting drivers 
at the wheel; 

The crash of leather whips; the crush 
and roll 

Of wheels; the groan of yokes and 
grinding steel 

And iron chain, and lo! at last the 
whole 

Vast line, that reach’d as if to touch 
the goal, 

Began to stretch and stream away 
and wind 

Toward the west, as if with one con¬ 
trol; 






Cxoims for (Oregon 


Then hope loom’d fair, and home lay- 
far behind; 

Before, the boundless plain, and 
fiercest of their kind. 

At first the way lay green and 
fresh as seas, 

And far away as any reach of wave; 

The sunny streams went by in belt of 
trees; 

And here and there the tassell’d 
tawny brave 

Swept by on horse, look’d back, 
stretch’d forth and gave 

A yell of warn, and then did wheel 
and rein 

Awhile, and point away, dark-brow’d 
and grave, 

Into the far and dim and distant plain 

With signs and prophecies, and then 
plunged on again. 

Some hills at last began to lift and 
break; 

Some streams began to fail of wood 
and tide, 

The somber plain began betime to 
take 

A hue of weary brown, and wild and 
wide 

It stretch’d its naked breast on every 
side. 

A babe was heard at last to cry for 
bread 

Amid the deserts; cattle low’d and 
died, 

And dying men went by with broken 
tread, 

And left a long black serpent line of 
wreck and dead. 


I67 

Strange hunger’d birds, black¬ 
wing’d and still as death, 

And crown’d of red with hooked 

■ beaks, blew low 

And close about, till we could touch 
their breath— 

Strange unnamed birds, that seem’d 
to come and go 

In circles now, and now direct and 
slow, 

Continual, yet never touch the earth; 

Slim foxes slid and shuttled to and 
fro 

At times across the dusty weary 
dearth 

Of life, look’d back, then sank like 
crickets in a hearth. 

Then dust arose, a long dim line 
like smoke 

From out of riven earth. The wheels 
went groaning by, 

Ten thousand feet in harness and in 
yoke, 

They tore the ways of ashen alkali, 

And desert winds blew sudden, swift 
and dry. 

The dust! it sat upon and fill’d the 
train! 

It seem’d to fret and fill the very sky. 

Lo! dust upon the beasts, the tent, 
the plain, 

And dust, alas! on breasts that rose 
not up again. 

They sat in desolation and in dust 

By dried-up desert streams; the 
mother’s hands 

Hid all her bended face; the cattle 
thrust 



®fje Zeroes ot Oregon 


x68 

Their tongues and faintly call’d across 
the lands. 

The babes, that knew not what this 
way through sands 

Could mean, did ask if it would end 
today . . . 

The panting wolves slid by, red-eyed, 
in bands 

To pools beyond. The men look’d 
far away, 

And, silent, saw that all a boundless 
desert lay. 

They rose by night; they struggled 
on and on 

As thin and still as ghosts; then here 
and there 

Beside the dusty way before the dawn, 

Men silent laid them down in their 
despair, 

And died. But woman! Woman, 
frail as fair 

May man have strength to give to 
you your due; 


You falter’d not, nor murmured any¬ 
where, 

You held your babes, held to your 
course, and you 

Bore on through burning hell your 
double burdens through. 

Men stood at last, the decimated 
few, 

Above a land of running streams, and 
they? 

They push’d aside the boughs, and 
peering through 

Beheld afar the cool, refreshing bay; 

Then some did curse, and some bend 
hands to pray; 

But some look’d back upon the 
desert, wide 

And desolate with death, then all the 
day 

They mourned. But one, with noth¬ 
ing left beside 

His dog to love, crept down among 
the ferns and died. 


THE HEROES OF OREGON 


I stand upon the green Sierra’s 
wall; 

Against the east, beyond the yellow 
grass, 

I see the broken hill-tops lift and fall, 

Then sands that shimmer like a sea 
of glass . . . 

There lies the nation’s great high road 
of dead. 

Forgotten aye, unnumbered, and, 
alas! 

Unchronicled in deed or death; 
instead, 


The new aristocrat lifts high a lordly 
head. 

My brave and unremember’d 
heroes, rest; 

You fell in silence, silent lie and 
sleep. 

Sleep on unsung, for this, I say, were 
best: 

The world today has hardly time to 
weep; 

The world today will hardly care to 
keep — 





®fje Percies of Oregon 


In heart her plain and unpretending 
brave. 

The desert winds, they whistle by 
and sweep 

About you; brown'd and russet 
grasses wave 

Along a thousand leagues that lie one 
common grave. 

The proud and careless pass in 
palace car 

Along the line you blazon’d white 
with bones; 

Pass swift to people, and possess and 
mar 

Your lands with monuments and 
letter’d stones 

Unto themselves. Thank God! this 
waste disowns 

Their touch. His everlasting hand 
has drawn 

A shining line around you. Wealth 
bemoans 

The waste your splendid grave em¬ 
ploys. Sleep on, 

No hand shall touch your dust this 
side of God and dawn. 

I let them stride across with grasp¬ 
ing hands 

And strive for brief possession; mark 
and line 

With lifted walls the new divided 
lands, 

And gather growing herds of lowing 
kine. 

I could not covet these, could not 
confine 

My heart to one; all seem'd to me the 
same, 


169 

And all below my mountain home, 
divine 

And beautiful, held in another’s 
name, 

As if the herds and lands were mine, 

All mine, or his, all beautiful the 
same. 

I have not been, shall not be, 
understood; 

I have not wit, nor will, to well 
explain, 

But that which men call good I find 
not good. 

The lands the savage held, shall hold 
again, 

The gold the savage spurn’d in proud 
disdain 

For centuries; go, take them all; build 
high 

Your gilded temples; strive and strike 
and strain 

And crowd and controvert and curse 
and lie 

In church and State, in town and 
citadel, and . . . die. 

And who shall grow the nobler 
from it all? 

The mute and unsung savage loved 
as true— 

He felt, as grateful felt, God’s bless¬ 
ings fall 

About his lodge and tawny babes as 
you 

In temples,—Moslem, Christian, in¬ 
fidel, or Jew. 

. . . The sea, the great white, 
braided, bounding sea, 

Is laughing in your face; the arching 
blue 





170 


(Klfjere 3 RnUs! tfjc (Oregon 


Remains to God; the mountains still 
are free, 

A refuge for the few remaining tribes 
and me. 

Your cities! from the first the hand 
of God 

Has been against them; sword and 
flood and flame. 

The earthquake’s march, and pesti¬ 
lence, have trod 


To undiscerning dust the very 
name 

Of antique capitals; and still the 
same 

Sad destiny besets the battle-fields 

Of Mammon and the harlot’s house 
of shame. 

Lo! man with monuments and lifted 
shields 

Against his city’s fate. A flame! his 
city yields. 


WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON 


See once these stately scenes, then 
roam no more; 

No more remains on earth to eager 
eyes; 

The cataract comes down, a broken 
roar, 

The palisades defy approach, and rise 

Green moss’d and dripping to the 
clouded skies. 

The canon thunders with its full of 
foam, 

And calls loud-mouth’d, and all the 
land defies; 

The mounts make fellowship and 
dwell at home 

In snowy brotherhood beneath their 
purpled dome. 

The rainbows swim in circles round, 
and rise 

Against the hanging granite walls till 
lost 

In drifting dreamy clouds and dappled 
skies, 

A grand mosaic intertwined and 
toss’d 


Along the mighty canon, bound and 
cross’d 

By storms of screaming birds of sea 
and land; 

The salmon rush below, bright red 
and boss’d 

In silver. Tawny, tall, on either 
hand 

You see the savage spearman nude 
and silent stand. 

Here sweep the wide wild waters cold 
and white 

And blue in their far depths; divided 
now 

By sudden swift canoe as still and 
light 

As feathers nodding from the painted 
brow 

That lifts and looks from out the 
imaged prow. 

Ashore you hear the papoose shout at 
play; 

The curl’d smoke comes from under¬ 
neath the bough 

Of leaning fir: the wife looks far 
away 







OTjere 3&olte tfje ©regon 


171 


And sees a swift slim bark divide the 
dashing spray. 

Slow drift adown the river’s level’d 
deep, 

And look above; lo, columns! woods! 
the snow! 

The rivers rush upon the brink and 
leap 

From out the clouds three thousand 
feet below, 

And land afoam in tops of firs that 
grow 

Against your river’s rim: t'ney plash, 
they play 

In clouds, now loud and now subdued 
and slow, 

A thousand thunder tones; they swing 
and sway 

In idle winds, long leaning shafts of 
shining spray. 

An Indian summer-time it was, 
long past, 

We lay on this Columbia, far below 

The stormy water falls, and God had 
cast 

Us heaven’s stillness. Dreamily and 
slow 

We drifted as the light bark chose to 
go. 

An Indian girl with ornaments of 
shell 

Began to sing. . . . The stars may 
hold such flow 

Of hair, such eyes, but rarely earth. 
There fell 

A sweet enchantment that possess’d 
me as a spell. 


We saw an elk forsake the sable 
wood, 

Step quick across the rim of shining 
sand, 

Breast out unscared against the flash¬ 
ing flood, 

Then brisket deep with lifted antlers 
stand, 

And ears alert, look sharp on either 
hand, 

Then whistle shrill to dam and doubt¬ 
ing fawn 

To cross, then lead with black nose 
from the land. 

They cross’d, they climb’d the heav¬ 
ing hills, were gone, 

A sturdy charging line with crooked 
sabers drawn. 

Then black swans cross’d us slowly 
low and still; 

Then other swans, wide-wing’d and 
white as snow, 

Flew overhead and topp’d the 
timber’d hill, 

And call’d and sang afar, coarse¬ 
voiced and slow, 

Till sounds roam’d lost in somber firs 
below . . . 

Then clouds blew in, and all the sky 
was cast 

With tumbled and tumultuous clouds 
that grow 

Red thunderbolts. ... A flash! 
A thunderblast! 

The clouds were rent, and lo! Mount 
Hood hung white and vast. 




172 


picture of a JBull 


PICTURE OF A BULL 


Once, morn by morn, when snowy 
mountains flamed 

With sudden shafts of light that shot 
a flood 

Into the vale like fiery arrows aim’d 

At night from mighty battlements, 
there stood 

Upon a cliff high-limn’d against 
Mount Hood, 

A matchless bull, fresh forth from 
sable wold, 

And standing so seem’d grander 
’gainst the wood 

Than winged bull that stood with tips 
of gold 

Beside the brazen gates of Nineveh 
of old. 

A time he toss’d the dewy turf, and 
then 

Stretch’d forth his wrinkled neck, 
and loud 

He call’d above the far abodes of men 

Until his breath became a curling 
cloud 

And wreathed about his neck a misty 
shroud. 

He then as sudden as he came pass’d 
on 


With lifted head, majestic and most 
proud, 

And lone as night in deepest wood 
withdrawn 

He roamed in silent rage until an¬ 
other dawn. 

What drove the hermit from the 
valley herd, 

What cross of love, what cold neglect 
to kind, 

Or scorn of unpretending worth had 
stirr’d 

The stubborn blood and drove him 
forth to find 

A fellowship in mountain cloud and 
wind, 

I ofttime wonder’d much; and oft- 
time thought 

The beast betray’d a royal monarch’s 
mind 

To lift above the low herd’s common 
lot 

And make them hear him still when 
they had fain forgot. 


VAQUERO 


His broad-brimm’d hat push’d 
back with careless air, 

The proud vaquero sits his steed as 
free 

As winds that toss his black abundant 
hair. 

No rover ever swept a lawless sea 


With such a haught and heedless air 

as he 

Who scorns the path, and bounds 
with swift disdain 
Away, a peon bom, yet born to be 
A splendid king; behold him ride, 
and reign. 




®fje ©real Cmeralto tCatib 


173 


Kow brave he takes his herds in 
branding days, 

On timber’d hills that belt about the 
plain; 

He climbs, he wheels, he shouts 
through winding ways 

Of hiding ferns and hanging fir; the 
rein 

Is loose, the rattling spur drives swift; 
the mane 

Blows free; the bullocks rush in 
storms before; 

They turn with lifted heads, they 
rush again, 

Then sudden plunge from out the 
wood, and pour 

A cloud upon the plain with one 
terrific roar. 


Now sweeps the tawny man on 
stormy steed, 

His gaudy trappings toss’d about and 
blown 

About the limbs as lithe as any reed; 

The swift long lasso twirl’d above is 
thrown 

From flying hand; the fall, the fearful 
groan 

Of bullock toil’d and tumbled in the 
dust— 

The black herds onward sweep, and 
all disown 

The fallen, struggling monarch that 
has thrust 

His tongue in rage and roll’d his red 
eyes in disgust. 


THE GREAT EMERALD LAND 


A morn in Oregon! The kindled 
camp 

Upon the mountain brow that broke 
below 

In steep and grassy stairway to the 
damp 

And dewy valley, snapp’d and flamed 
aglow 

With knots of pine. Above, the 
peaks of snow, 

With under-belts of sable forest, rose 

And flash’d in sudden sunlight. To 
and fro 

And far below, in lines and winding 
rows, 

The herders drove their bands, and 
broke the deep repose. 


I heard their shouts like sounding 
hunter’s horn, 

The lowing herds made echoes far 
away; 

When lo! the clouds came driving in 
with mom 

Toward the sea, as fleeing from the 
day. 

The valleys fill’d with curly clouds. 
They lay 

Below, a levell’d sea that reach’d and 
roll’d 

And broke like breakers of a stormy 
bay 

Against the grassy shingle fold on fold. 

So like some splendid ocean, snowy* 
white and cold. 




174 


®fje (great Cmeralb Hattb 


The peopled valley lay a hidden 
world, 

The shouts were shouts of drowning 
men that died, 

The broken clouds along the border 
curl’d, 

And bent the grass with weighty 
freight of tide. 

A savage stood in silence at my side, 

Then sudden threw aback his beaded 
strouds 

And stretch’d his hand above the 
scene, and cried, 

As all the land lay dead in snowy 
shrouds: 

“Behold! the sun bathes in a silver 
sea of clouds.” 

Here lifts the land of clouds! 
Fierce mountain forms, 

Made white with everlasting snows, 
look down 

Through mists of many canons, 
mighty storms 

That stretch from Autumn’s purple, 
drench and drown 

The yellow hem of Spring. Tall 
cedars frown 

Dark-brow’d, through banner’d 
clouds that stretch and stream 

Above the sea from snowy mountain 
crown. 

The heavens roll, and all things drift 
or seem 

To drift about and drive like some 
majestic dream. 


In waning Autumn time, when 
purpled skies 

Begin to haze in indolence below 

The snowy peaks, you see black forms 
arise, 

In rolling thunder banks above, and 
throw 

Quick barricades about the gleaming 
snow. 

The strife begins! The battling 
seasons stand 

Broad breast to breast. A flash! 
Contentions grow 

Terrific. Thunders crash, and light¬ 
nings brand 

The battlements. The clouds pos¬ 
sess the conquered land. 

Then, clouds blow by, the swans 
take loftier flight, 

The yellow blooms burst out upon the 
hill, 

The purple camas comes as in a night, 

Tall spiked and dripping of the dews 
that fill 

The misty valley. Sunbeams break 
and spill 

Their glory till the vale is full of noon. 

Then roses belt the streams, no bird 
is still. 

The stars, as large as lilies, meet the 
moon 

And sing of summer, bom thus sud¬ 
den full and soon. 





tEo at Hast 

TO REST AT LAST 


175 


What wonder that I swore a 
prophet’s oath 

Of after days. ... I push’d the 
boughs apart, 

I stood, look’d forth, and then look'd 
back, all loath 

To leave my shadow’d wood. I 
gathered heart 

From very fearfulness; with sudden 
start 

I plunged in the arena; stood a wild 

Uncertain thing, all artless, in all 
art. . . . 

The brave approved, the fair lean’d 
fair and smiled,— 

True lions touch with velvet-touch a 
timid child. 

But now enough of men. Enough, 
brief day 

Of tinsel’d life. The court, the castle 
gate 

That open’d wide along the pleasant 
way, 

The gracious converse of the kingly 
great 

Had made another glad and well elate 

With all. A word of thanks; but I 
am grown 

Aweary. ... I am not of this 
estate; 

The poor, the plain brave border-men 
alone 

Were my first love, and these I will 
not now disown. 

I know a grassy slope above the 
sea, 


The utmost limit of the westmost 
land. 

In savage, gnarl’d, and antique 
majesty 

The great trees belt about the place, 
and stand 

In guard, with mailed limb and lifted 
hand, 

Against the cold approaching civic 
pride. 

The foamy brooklets seaward leap; 
the bland 

Still air is fresh with touch of wood 
and tide, 

And peace, eternal peace, possesses, 
wild and wide. 

Here I return, here I abide and 
and rest; 

Some flocks and herds shall feed 
along the stream; 

Some corn and climbing vines shall 
make us blest 

With bread and luscious fruit. . . . 
The sunny dream 

Or wampum men in moccasins that 
seem 

To come and go in silence, girt in 
shell, 

Before a sun-clad cabin-door, I deem 

The harbinger of peace. Hope 
weaves her spell 

Again about the wearied heart, and 
all is well. 

Here I shall sit in sunlit life’s 
decline 

Beneath my vine and somber verdant 
tree. 



176 


iUst at Unit 


Some tawny maids in other tongues 
than mine 

Shall minister. Some memories shall 
be 

Before me. I shall sit and I shall see, 

That last vast day that dawn shall 
reinspire, 


The sun fall down upon the farther 
sea, 

Fall wearied down to rest, and so 
retire, 

A splendid sinking isle of far-off 
fading fire. 

• •••••• 



SONGS OF THE SUNLANDS 


12 


177 




/ 


\ 


ISLES OP THE AMAZONS 


PART I 

Primeval forests! virgin sod! 

That Saxon has not ravish'd yet , 

Lo! peak on peak in stairways set — 

In stepping stairs that reach to God! 

Here we are free as sea or wind , 

For here are set Time's snowy tents 

In everlasting battlements 

Against the march of Saxon mind. 

Far up in the hush of the Amazon 
River, 

And mantled and hung in the 
tropical trees, 

There are isles as grand as the isles 
of seas. 

And the waves strike strophes, and 
keen reeds quiver, 

As the sudden canoe shoots past them 
and over 

The strong, still tide to the opposite 
shore, 

Where the blue-eyed men by the 
sycamore 

Sit mending their nets ’neath the 
vine-twined cover; 

Sit weaving the threads of long, 
strong grasses; 

They wind and they spin on the 
clumsy wheel, 


Into hammocks red-hued with the 
cochineal, 

To trade with the single black ship 
that passes, 

With foreign old freightage of curious 
old store, 

And still and slow as if half 
asleep,— 

A cunning old trader that loves to 
creep 

Cautious and slow in the shade of the 
shore. 

And the blue-eyed men that are mild 
as the dawns— 

Oh, delicate dawns of the grand 
Andes! 

Lift up soft eyes that are deep like 
seas, 

And mild yet wild as the red-white 
fawns’; 

And they gaze into yours, then weave, 
then listen, 

Then look in wonder, then again 
weave on, 

Then again look wonder that you 
are not gone, 

While the keen reeds quiver and the 
bent waves glisten; 

But they say no word while they 
weave and wonder, 


179 



Mes of tfjc Sma^ong 


180 

Though they sometimes sing, 
voiced low like the dove, 

And as deep and as rich as their 
tropical love, 

A-weaving their net threads through 
and under. 

A pure, true people you may trust are 
these 

That weave their threads where the 
quick leaves quiver; 

And this is their tale of the Isles of 
the river, 

And the why that their eyes are so 
blue like seas; 

The why that the men draw water 
and bear 

The wine or the water in the wild 
boar skin, 

And do hew the wood and weave 
and spin, 

And so bear with the women full 
burthen and share. 

A curious old tale of a curious old 
time, 

That is told you betimes by a 
quaint old crone, 

Who sits on the rim of an island 
alone, 

As ever was told you in story or 
rhyme. 

Her brown, bare feet dip down to the 
river, 

And dabble and plash to her mono¬ 
tone, 

As she holds in her hands a strange 
green stone, 


And talks to the boat where the bent 
reeds quiver. 

And the quaint old crone has a singu¬ 
lar way 

Of holding her head to the side and 
askew, 

And smoothing the stone in her 
palms all day 

As saying “I’ve nothing at all for 
you,” 

Until you have anointed her palm, 
and you 

Have touched on the delicate 
spring of a door 

That silver has opened perhaps 
before; 

For woman is woman the wide world 
through. 

The old near truth on the far new 
shore, 

I bought and I paid for it; so did 
you; 

The tale may be false or the tale 
may be true; 

I give it as I got it, and who can more? 

If I have made journeys to difficult 
shores, 

And woven delusions in innocent 
verse, 

If none be the wiser, why, who is 
the worse? 

The field it was mine, the fruit it is 
yours. 

A sudden told tale. You may read 
as you run. 

A part of it hers, some part is my 
own, 





Ssles: of tfje Smajons 


Crude, and too carelessly woven 
and sown, 

As I sail’d on the Mexican seas in the 
sun. 

’Twas nations ago, when the Ama¬ 
zons were, 

That a fair young knight—says the 
quaint old crone, 

With her head sidewise, as she 
smooths at the stone— 

Came over the seas, with his golden 
hair, 

And a great black steed, and glitter¬ 
ing spurs, 

With a woman’s face, with a manly 
frown, 

A heart as tender and as true as 
hers, 

And a sword that had come from 
crusaders down. 

And fairest, and foremost in love as in 
war 

Was the brave young knight of the 
brave old days. 

Of all the knights, with their 
knightly ways, 

That had journey’d away to this 
world afar 

In the name of Spain; of the splendid 
few 

Who bore her banner in the new¬ 
born world, 

From the sea rim up to where 
clouds are curl’d, 

And condors beat with black wings 
the blue. 

He was born, says the crone, where 
the brave are fair, 


1 8 1 

And blown from the banks of the 
Guadalquiver, 

And yet blue-eyed, with the Celt’s 
soft hair, 

With never a drop of the dark deep 
river 

Of Moorish blood that had swept 
through Spain, 

And plash’d the world with its tawny 
stain. 

He sat on his steed, and his sword was 
bloody 

With heathen blood: the battle 
was done; 

His heart rebelled and rose with pity. 

For crown’d with fire, wreathed and 
ruddy 

Fell antique temples built up to the 
sun. 

Below on the plain lay the burning 
city 

At the conqueror’s feet; the red 
street strown 

With dead, with gold, and with 
gods overthrown. 

And the heathen pour’d, in a helpless 
flood, 

With never a wail and with never a 
blow, 

At last, to even provoke a foe, 

Through gateways, wet with the 
pagan’s blood. 

“Ho, forward! smite!” but the min¬ 
strel linger’d, 

He reach’d his hand and he touch’d 
the rein, 

He humm’d an air, and he toy’d and 
finger’d 




Me« of tfje Smajotuf 


182 


The arching neck and the glossy 
mane. 

He rested the heel, he rested the hand, 

Though the thing was death to the 
man to dare 

To doubt, to question, to falter 
there, 

Nor heeded at all to the hot com¬ 
mand. 

He wiped his steel on his black steed’s 
mane, 

He sheathed it deep, then look’d at 
the sun, 

Then counted his comrades, one 
by one, 

With booty returning from the 
plunder’d plain. 

He lifted his face to the flashing snow, 

He lifted his shield of steel as he 
sang, 

And he flung it away till it clang’d 
and rang 

On the granite rocks in the plain 
below. 

He cross’d his bosom. Made over¬ 
bold, 

He lifted his voice and sang, quite 
low 

At first, then loud in the long ago, 

When the loves endured though the 
days grew old. 

They heard his song, the chief on the 
plain 

Stood up in his stirrups, and, sword 
in hand, 

He curs’d and he call’d with a 
loud command 


To the blue-eyed boy to return again; 

To lift his shield again to the sky, 

And come and surrender his sword 
or die. 

He wove his hand in the stormy mane, 

He lean’d him forward, he lifted the 
rein, 

He struck the flank, he wheel’d and 
sprang, 

And gaily rode in the face of the 
sun, 

And bared his sword and he bravely 
sang, 

“ Ho! come and take it! ” but there 
came not one. 

And so he sang with his face to the 
south: 

“I shall go; I shall search for the 
Amazon shore, 

Where the curses of man they are 
heard no more, 

And kisses alone shall embrace the 
mouth. 

“ I shall journey in search of the Incan 
Isles, 

Go far and away to traditional 
land, 

Where love is queen in a crown of 
smiles, 

And battle has never imbrued a 
hand; 

“Where man has never despoil’d or 
trod; 

Where woman’s hand with a 
woman’s heart 

Has fashion’d an Eden from man 
apart, 



llsles of tfjc Smajonsi 


And walks in her garden alone with 
God. 

“I shall find that Eden, and all my 
years 

Shall sit and repose, shall sing in 
the sun; 

And the tides may rest or the tides 
may run, 

And men may water the world with 
tears; 

“And the years may come and the 
years may go, 

And men make war, may slay and 
be slain, 

But I not care, for I never shall know 

Of man, or of aught that is man’s 
again. 

“The waves may battle, the winds 
may blow, 

The mellow rich moons may ripen 
and fall, 

The seasons of gold they may gather 
or go, 

The mono may chatter, the paro¬ 
quet call, 

And I shall not heed, take note, or 
know, 

If the Fates befriend, or if ill 
befall, 

Of worlds without or of worlds at 

all, 

Of heaven above, or of hades below.” 

'Twas the song of a dream and the 
dream of a singer, 

Drawn fine as the delicate fibers of 
gold, 


183 

And broken in two by the touch of a 
finger, 

And blown as the winds blow, rent 
and roll’d 

In dust, and spent as a tale that is 
told. 

Alas! for his dreams and the songs he 
sung; 

The beasts beset him; the serpents 
they hung, 

Red-tongued and terrible, over his 
head. 

He clove and he thrust with his 
keen, quick steel, 

He coax’d with his hand, he urged 
with his heel, 

Till his steel was broken, and his steed 
lay dead. 

He toil’d to the river, he lean’d intent 

To the wave, and away to the 
islands fair, 

From beasts that pursued, and he 
breathed a prayer; 

For soul and body were well-nigh 
spent. 

’Twas the king of rivers, and the Isles 
were near; 

Yet it moved so strange, so still, so 
strong, 

It gave no sound, not even the song 

Of a sea-bird screaming defiance or 
fear. 

It was dark and dreadful! Wide like 
an ocean, 

Much like a river but more like a 


sea, 




Meg of tfje Smajong 


184 

Save that there was naught of the 
turbulent motion 

Of tides, or of winds blown abaft, 
or alee. 

Yea, strangely strong was the wave 
and slow, 

And half-way hid in the dark, deep 
tide, 

Great turtles, they paddled them to 
and fro, 

And away to the Isles and the 
opposite side. 

The nude black boar through abun¬ 
dant grass 

Stole down to the water and buried 
his nose, 

And crunch’d white teeth till the 
bubbles rose 

As white and as bright as are globes 
of glass. 

Yea, steadily moved it, mile upon 
mile, 

Above and below and as still as the 
air; 

The bank made slippery here and 
there 

By the slushing slide of the crocodile. 

The great trees bent to the tide like 
slaves; 

They dipp’d their boughs as the 
stream swept on, 

And then drew back, then dipp’d 
and were gone 

Away to the sea with the resolute 
waves. 

The land was the tide’s; the shore was 
undone; 


It look’d as the lawless, unsatisfied 

seas 

Had thrust up an arm through the 
tangle of trees, 

And clutchd at the citrons that grew 
in the sun; 

And clutch’d at the diamonds that 
hid in the sand, 

And laid heavy hand on the gold, and 
a hand 

On the redolent fruits, on the ruby¬ 
like wine, 

On the stones like the stars when the 
stars are divine; 

Had thrust through the rocks of the 
ribb’d Andes; 

Had wrested and fled; and had left 
a waste 

And a wide way strewn in precipi¬ 
tate haste, 

As he bore them away to the 
buccaneer seas. 

Oh heavens, the eloquent song of the 
silence! 

Asleep lay the sun in the vines, on 
the sod, 

And asleep in the sun lay the green 
girdled islands, 

As rock’d to their rest in the cradle 
of God. 

God’s poet is silence! His song is 
unspoken, 

And yet so profound, so loud, and 
so far, 

It fills you, it thrills you with 
measures unbroken, 

And as still, and as fair, and as far 
as a star. 


/ 





Ssleg of tfje &ma?ott0 


185 


The shallow seas moan. From the 
first they have mutter’d, 

As a child that is fretted, and weeps 
at its will. . . . 

The poems of God are too grand to 
be utter’d: 

The dreadful deep seas they are 
loudest when still. 

‘ ‘ I shall fold my hands, for this is the 
river 

Of death,” he said, "and the sea- 
green isle 

Is an Eden set by the Gracious Giver 

Wherein to rest.” He listened the 
while, 

Then lifted his head, then lifted a 
hand 

Arch’d over his brow, and he lean’d 
and listen’d,— 

’Twas only a bird on a border of 
sand,— 

The dark stream eddied and 
gleam’d and glisten’d, 

And the martial notes from the 
isle were gone, 

Gone as a dream dies out with 
the dawn. 

’Twas only a bird on a border of 
sand, 

Slow piping, and diving it here 
and there, 

Slim, gray, and shadowy, light as 
the air, 

That dipp’d below from a point of the 
land. 

‘'Unto God a prayer and to love a 
tear, 


And I die,” he said, “in a desert here, 

So deep that never a note is heard 

But the listless song of that soulless 
bird. 

The strong trees lean in their love 
unto trees, 

Lock arms in their loves, and are so 
made strong, 

Stronger than armies; aye, stronger 
than seas 

That rush from their caves in a 
storm of song. 

‘ ‘ A miser of old, his last great treasure 

Flung far in the sea, and he fell and 
he died; 

And so shall I give, O terrible tide, 

To you my song and my last sad 
measure.” 

He blew on a reed by the still, strong 
river, 

Blew low at first, like a dream, then 
long, 

Then loud, then loud as the keys that 
quiver, 

And fret and toss with their freight 
of song. 

He sang and he sang with a resolute 
will, 

Till the mono rested above on his 
haunches, 

And held his head to the side and was 
still,— 

Till a bird blown out of the night of 
branches 

Sang sadder than love, so sweeter 
than sad, 



Mess of tfje amajons 


186 

Till the boughs did burthen and 
and the reeds did fill 

With beautiful birds, and the boy 
was glad. 

Our loves they are told by the 
myriad-eyed stars, 

And love it is grand in a reasonable 
way, 

And fame it is good in its way for a 
day, 

Borne dusty from books and bloody 
from wars; 

And death, I say, is an aboslute need, 

And a calm delight, and an ulti¬ 
mate good; 

But a song that is blown from a 
watery reed 

By a soundless deep from a bound¬ 
less wood, 

With never a hearer to heed or to 
prize 

But God and the birds and the 
hairy wild beasts, 

Is sweeter than love, than fame, or 
than feasts, 

Or any thing else that is under the 
skies. 

The quick leaves quiver’d, and the 
sunlight danced; 

As the boy sang sweet, and the 
birds said, “Sweet;” 

And the tiger crept close and lay 
low at his feet, 

And he sheathed his claws as he 
listened entranced. 

The serpent that hung from the syca¬ 
more bough, 


And sway’d his head in a crescent 
above, 

Had folded his neck to the white limb 
now, 

And fondled it close like a great 
black love. 

But the hands grew weary, the heart 
wax’d faint, 

The loud notes fell to a far-off plaint, 

The sweet birds echo’d no more, “ Oh, 
sweet,” 

The tiger arose and unsheathed his 
claws, 

The serpent extended his iron jaws, 

And the frail reed shiver’d and fell at 
his feet. 

A sound on the tide! and he turn’d 
and cried, 

“Oh, give God thanks, for they 
come, they come!” 

He look’d out afar on the opaline 
tide, 

Then clasp’d his hands, and his 
lips were dumb. 

A sweeping swift crescent of sudden 
canoes! 

As light as the sun of the south and 
as soon, 

And true and as still as a sweet half¬ 
moon 

That leans from the heavens, and 
loves and woos! 

The Amazons came in their martial 
pride, 

As full on the stream as a studding 
of stars, 


/ 




Sales: of ttje Smajona 


All girded in armor as girded in 
wars, 

In foamy white furrows dividing the 
tide. 

With a face as brown as the boat¬ 
men’s are, 

Or the brave, brown hand of a 
harvester; 

The Queen on a prow stood splen¬ 
did and tall, 

As the petulant waters did lift and 
fall; 

Stood forth for the song, half lean’d 
in surprise, 

Stood fair to behold, and yet grand 
to behold, 

And austere in her face, and 
saturnine-soul’d, 

And sad and subdued, in her eloquent 
eyes. 

And sad were they all; yet tall and 
serene 

Of presence, but silent, and brow’d 
severe; 

As for some things lost, or for some 
fair, green, 

And beautiful place, to the memory 
dear. 

“O Mother of God! Thrice merciful 
saint! 

I am saved!” he said, and he wept 
outright; 

Ay, wept as even a woman might, 

For the soul was full and the heart 
was faint. 

“Stay! stay!” cried the Queen, and 
she leapt to the land, 


187 

And she lifted her hand, and she 
lowered their spears, 

“A woman! a woman! ho! help! give 
a hand! 

A woman! a woman! I know by the 
tears.” 

Then gently as touch of the truest of 
woman, 

They lifted him up from the earth 
where he fell, 

And into the boat, with a half 
hidden swell 

Of the heart that was holy and 
tenderly human. 

They spoke low-voiced as a vesper 
prayer; 

They pillowed his head as only the 
hand 

Of woman can pillow, and push’d 
from the land, 

And the Queen she sat threading the 
gold of his hair. 

PART II 

Forsake those People. What are 
they 

That laugh, that live, that love by rule? 

Forsake the Saxon. Who are these 

That shun the shadows of the trees; 

The perfumed forests? ... Go thy 
way, 

We are not one. I will not please 

You:—fare you well, 0 wiser fool! 

But ye who love me:—Ye who love 

The shaggy forests, fierce delights 

Of sounding waterfalls, of heights 

That hang like broken moons above, 



Mka of tfje 8ma?otus 


188 

With brows of pine that brush the sun , 

Believe and follow. We are one: 

The wild man shall to us be tame, 

The woods shall yield their mysteries; 

The stars shall answer to a name, 

And be as birds above the trees . 

They swept to their Isles through the 
furrows of foam; 

Thy alit on the land, as love hasten¬ 
ing home, 

And below the banana, with leaf like 
a tent, 

They tenderly laid him, they bade 
him take rest, 

They brought him strange fishes 
and fruits of the best, 

And he ate and took rest with a 
patient content. 

They watched so well that he rose up 
strong, 

And stood in their midst, and they 
said, “How fair!” 

And they said, “How tall!” And 
they toy’d with his hair. 

And they touched his limbs and they 
said, “How long 

And how strong they are; and how 
brave she is, 

That she made her way through 
the wiles of man, 

That she braved his wrath, that she 
broke the ban 

Of his desolate life for the love of 
this!” 

They wrought for him armor and 
cunning attire, 


They brought him a sword and a 
great shell shield, 

And implored him to shiver the 
lance on the field, 

And to follow their beautiful Queen 
in her ire. 

But he took him apart; then the 
Amazons came 

And entreated of him with their 
eloquent eyes 

And their earnest and passionate 
souls of flame, 

And the soft, sweet words that are 
broken of sighs, 

To be one of their own, but he still 
denied 

And bow’d and abash’d he stole 
further aside. 

He stood by the Palms and he lean’d 
in unrest, 

And standing alone, looked out 
and afar, 

For his own fair land where the 
castles are, 

With irresolute arms on a restless 
breast. 

He re-lived his loves, he recall’d his 
wars, 

He gazed and he gazed with a soul 
distress’d, 

Like a far sweet star that is lost in 
the west, 

Till the day was broken to a dust of 
stars. 

They sigh’d, and they left him alone 
in the care 


/ 



3 teleg of tfje gtma^ons 189 


Of faithfullest matron; they moved 
to the field 

With the lifted sword and the 
sounding shield 

High fretting magnificent storms of 
hair. 

And, true as the moon in her march 
of stars, 

The Queen stood forth in her fierce 
attire 

Worn as they trained or worn in the 
wars, 

As bright and as chaste as a flash 
of fire. 

With girdles of gold and of silver 
cross’d, 

And plaited, and chased, and 
bound together, 

Broader and stronger than belts of 
leather, 

Cunningly fashion’d and blazon’d 
and boss’d— 

With diamonds circling her, stone 
upon stone, 

Above the breast where the borders 
fail, 

Below the breast where the fringes 
zone, 

She moved in a glittering garment 
of mail. 

The form made hardy and the waist 
made spare 

From athlete sports and adven¬ 
tures bold, 

The breastplate, fasten’d with 
clasps of gold, 


Was clasp’d, as close as the breasts 
could bear,— 

And bound and drawn to a delicate 
span, 

It flash’d in the red front ranks of 
the field— 

Was fashion’d full trim in its in¬ 
tricate plan 

And gleam’d as a sign, as well as a 
shield, 

That the virgin Queen was unyield¬ 
ing still, 

And pure as the tides that around 
her ran; 

True to her trust, and strong in her 
will 

Of war, and hatred to the touch of 
man. 

The field it was theirs in storm or in 
shine, 

So fairly they stood that the foe 
came not 

To battle again, and the fair forgot 

The rage of battle; and they trimm’d 
the vine, 

They tended the fields of the tall 
green corn, 

They crush’d the grape and they 
drew the wine 

In the great round gourds and the 
bended horn— 

And they lived as the gods in the 
days divine. 

They bathed in the wave in the 
amber mom, 




190 


Dslcs of tfjc Smajons 


They took repose in the peaceful 
shade 

Of eternal palms, and were never 
afraid; 

Yet oft did they sigh, and look far 
and forlorn. 

Where the rim of the wave was weav¬ 
ing a spell, 

And the grass grew soft where it 
hid from the sun, 

Would the Amazons gather them 
every one 

At the call of the Queen or the sound 
of her shell: 

Would come in strides through the 
kingly trees, 

And train and marshal them brave 
and well 

In the golden noon, in the hush of 
peace 

Where the shifting shades of the 
fan-palms fell; 

Would train till flush’d and as warm 
as wine: 

Would reach with their limbs, 
would thrust with the lance, 

Attack, retire, retreat and advance, 

Then wheel in column, then fall in 
line; 

Stand thigh and thigh with the limbs 
made hard 

And rich and round as the swift 
limb’d pard, 

Or a racer train’d, or a white bull 
caught 

In the lasso’s toils, where the tame 

are not: 


Would curve as the waves curve, 
swerve in line; 

Would dash through the trees, 
would train with the bow, 

Then back to the lines, now sud¬ 
den, then slow, 

Then flash their swords in the sun at 
a sign: 

Would settle the foot right firmly 
afront, 

Then soimd the shield till the sound 
was heard 

Afar, as the horn in the black boar 
hunt; 

Yet, strangest of all, say never one 
word. 

When shadows fell far from the west¬ 
ward, and when 

The sun had kiss’d hands and set 
forth for the east, 

They would kindle campfires and 
gather them then, 

Well-worn and most merry with 
song, to the feast. 

They sang of all things, but the one, 
sacred one, 

That could make them most glad, 
as they lifted the gourd 

And pass’d it around, with its rich 
purple hoard, 

From the island that lay with its 
face to the sun. 

Though lips were most luscious, and 
eyes as divine 

As the eyes of the skies that bend 
down from above; 




Sales of tfje 9 ma?ons 


Though hearts were made glad 
and most mellow with love, 

As dripping gourds drain’d of their 
burthens of wine; 

Though brimming, and dripping, and 
bent of their shape 

Were the generous gourds from the 
juice of the grape, 

They could sing not of love, they 
could breathe not a thought 

Of the savor of life; of love sought, or 
unsought. 

Their loves they were not; they had 
banished the name 

Of man, and the uttermost mention 
of love,— 

The moonbeams about them, the 
quick stars above, 

The mellow-voiced waves, they were 
ever the same, 

In sign, and in saying, of the old true 
lies; 

But they took no heed; no answer¬ 
ing sign, 

Save glances averted and half-hush’d 
sighs, 

Went back from the breasts with 
their loves divine. 

They sang of free life with a will, and 
well, 

They had paid for it well when the 
price was blood; 

They beat on the shield, and they 
blew on the shell, 

When their wars were not, for they 
held it good 

To be glad, and to sing the flush of 
the day, 


191 

In an annual feast, when the 
broad leaves fell; 

Yet some sang not, and some 
sighed, “Ah, well!”— 

For there’s far less left you to sing or 
to say, 

When mettlesome love is banish’d, I 
ween— 

To hint at as hidden, or to half 
disclose 

In the swift sword-cuts of the tongue, 
made keen 

With wine at a feast,—than one 
would suppose. 

So the days wore by but they brought 
no rest 

To the minstrel knight, though the 
sun was as gold, 

And the Isles were green, and the 
great Queen blest 

In the splendor of arms, and. as 
pure as bold. 

He would now resolve to reveal to her 
all, 

His sex and his race in a well-timed 
song; 

And his love of peace, his hatred of 
wrong, 

And his own deceit, though the sun 
should fall. 

Then again he would linger, and knew 
not how 

He could best proceed, and deferr’d 
him now 

Till a favorite day, then the fair day 
came, 

And still he delay’d, and reproached 
him the same. 



192 


Mt« of tfje 0ma?onst 


And he still said nought, but, subdu¬ 
ing his head 

He wander’d one day in a dubious 
spell 

Of unutterable thought of the truth 
unsaid, 

To the indolent shore, and he 
gather’d a shell, 

And he shaped its point to his pas¬ 
sionate mouth, 

And he turn’d to a bank and began 
to blow, 

While the Amazons trained in a 
troop below— 

Blew soft and sweet as a kiss of the 
south. 

I'he Amazons lifted with glad sur¬ 
prise, 

Stood splendid and glad and look’d 
far and fair, 

Set forward a foot, and shook back 
their hair, 

Like clouds push’d back from the 
sun-lit skies. 

It stirr’d their souls, and they ceased 
to train 

In troop by the shore, as the tremu¬ 
lous strain 

Fell down from the hill through 
the tasselling trees; 

And a murmur of song, like the 
sound of bees 

In the clover crown of a queenly 
spring, 

Came back unto him, and he laid 
the shell 

Aside on the bank, and began to sing 

Of eloquent love; and the ancient 
spell 


Of passionate song was his, and the 
Isle, 

As waked to delight from its 
slumber long, 

Came back in echoes; yet all this 
while 

He knew not at all the sin of his 
song. 

PART III 

Come , lovers, come, forget your painsI 

I know upcn this earth a spot 
Where clinking coins, that clank as 
chains, 

Upon the souls of men, are not; 

Nor man is measured for his gains 
Of gold that stream with crimson stains. 

There snow-topp'd towers crush the 
clouds 

And break the still abode of stars, 
Like sudden ghosts in snowy shrouds, 

New broken through their earthly 
bars, 

And condors whet their crooked beaks 
On lofty limits of the peaks. 

O men that fret as frets the main! 

You irk me with your eager gaze 

Down in the earth for fat increase — 
Eternal talks of gold and gain, 

Your shallow wit, your shallow ways , 
And breaks my soul across the shoal 
As breakers break on shallow seas. 

They bared their brows to the palms 
above, 

But some look’d level into com¬ 
rades’ eyes, 




3tel ts of tfje gmajons 


i93 


And they then remember’d that the 
thought of love 

Was the thing forbidden, and they 
sank in sighs. 

They turned from the training, to 
heed in throng 

To the old, old tale; and they 
trained no more, 

As he sang of love; and some on the 
shore, 

And full in the sound of the eloquent 
song, 

With womanly air and an irresolute 
will 

Went listlessly onward as gathering 
shells; 

Then gazed in the waters, as bound 
by spells; 

Then turned to the song and so sigh’d, 
and were still. 

And they said no word. Some tapp'd 
on the sand 

With the sandal’d foot, keeping 
time to the sound, 

In a sort of dream; some timed with 
the hand, 

And one held eyes full of tears to 
the ground. 

She thought of the days when their 
wars they were not, 

As she lean’d and listened to the 
old, old song, 

When they sang of their loves, and 
she well forgot 

Man’s hard oppressions and a world 
of wrong. 

13 


Like a pure true woman, with her 
trust in tears 

And the things that are true, she 
relieved them in thought, 

Though hush’d and crush’d in the fall 
of the years; 

She lived but the fair, and the false 
she forgot. 

As a tale long told, or as things that 
are dreams 

The quivering curve of the lip it 
contest 

The silent regrets, and the soul that 
teems 

With a world of love in a brave 
true breast. 

Then this one, younger, who had 
known no love, 

Nor look'd upon man but in blood 
on the field, 

She bow’d her head, and she leaned 
on her shield. 

And her heart beat quick as the wings 
of a dove 

That is blown from the sea, where 
the rests are not 

In the time of storms; and by in¬ 
stinct taught 

Grew pensive, and sigh’d; as she 
thought and she thought 

Of some wonderful things, and—she 
knew not of what. 

Then this one thought of a love for¬ 
saken, 

She thought of a brown sweet babe, 
and she thought 

Of the bread-fruits gather’d, of the 
swift fish taken 


\ 



194 


Sales of tije Smajonsi 


In intricate nets, like a love well 
sought. 

She thought of the moons of her 
maiden dawn, 

Mellow’d and fair with the forms 
of man; 

vSo dearer indeed to dwell upon 

Than the beautiful waves that 
around her ran: 

So fairer indeed than the fringes of 
light 

That lie at rest on the west of the 
sea 

In furrows of foam on the borders of 
night, 

And dearer indeed than the songs 
to be— 

Than calling of dreams from the 
opposite land, 

To the land of life, and of journeys 
dreary, 

When the soul goes over from the 
form grown weary, 

And walks in the cool of the trees on 
the sand. 

But the Queen was enraged and 
would smite him at first 

With the sword unto death, yet it 
seemed that she durst 

Not touch him at all; and she moved 
as to chide, 

And she lifted her face, and she 
frown’d at his side, 

Then she touch’d on his arm; then 
she looked in his eyes 

And right full in his soul, but she 
saw no fear, 


In the pale fair face, and with frown 
severe 

She press’d her lips as suppressing 
her sighs. 

She banish’d her wrath, she unbended 
her face, 

She lifted her hand and put back 
his hair 

From his fair sad brow, with a 
penitent air, 

And forgave him all with unuttered 
grace. 

But she said no word, yet no more was 
severe; 

She stood as subdued by the side 
of him still, 

Then averted her face with a reso¬ 
lute will, 

As to hush a regret, or to hide back a 
tear. 

She sighed to herself: “A stranger is 
this, 

And ill and alone, that knows not 

at all 

That a throne shall totter and the 
strong shall fall, 

At the mention of love and its bane- 
fullest bliss. 

“O life that is lost in bewildering 
love— 

But a stranger is sacred!” She 
lifted a hand 

And she laid it as soft as the breast of 
a dove 

On the minstrel’s mouth. It was 
more than the wand 



Mies of tf)e Smajotut 


i95 


Of the tamer of serpents, for she did 
no more 

Than to bid with her eyes and to 
beck with her hand, 

And the song drew away to the waves 
of the shore; 

Took wings, as it were, to the verge 
of the land. 

But her heart was oppress’d. With 
penitent head 

She turned to her troop, and retiring, 
she said: 

4 ‘Alas! and alas! shall it come to pass 

That the panther shall die from a 
blade of grass? 

“ That the tiger shall yield at the 
benthom’s blast? 

That we, who have conquer’d a 
world and all 

Of men and of beasts in the world 
must fall 

Ourselves at the mention of love at 
last?” 

The tall Queen turn’d with her 
troop; 

She led minstrel and all to the 
innermost part 

Of the palm-crowned Isle, where 
great trees group 

In armies, to battle when black- 
storms start, 

And made a retreat from the sun by 
the trees 

That are topp’d like tents, where 
the fire-flies 

Are a light to the feet, and a fair 
lake lies, 

As cool as the coral-set center of seas. 


The palm-trees lorded the scope like 
kings, 

Their tall tops tossing the indolent 
clouds 

That folded the Isle in the dawn, 
like shrouds, 

Then fled from the sun like to living 
things. 

The cockatoo swung in the vines 
below, 

And muttering hung on a golden 
thread, 

Or moved on the moss’d bough to 
and fro, 

In plumes of gold and array’d in 
red. 

The lake lay hidden away from the 
light, 

As asleep in the Isle from the tropical 
noon, 

And narrow and bent like a new¬ 
born moon, 

And fair as a moon in the noon of the 
night. 

’Twas shadow’d by forests, and 
fringed by ferns, 

And fretted anon by red fishes that 
leapt 

At indolent flies that slept or kept 

Their drowsy tones on the tide by 
turns. 

And here in the dawn when the Day 
was strong 

And newly aroused from leafy 
repose, 

With dews on his feet and tints of 
the rose 



196 


Mes of tfje 8ma?ott£f 


In his great flush’d face was a sense 
of song 

That the tame old world has not 
known or heard. 

The soul was filled with the soft 
perfumes, 

The eloquent wings of the humming 
bird 

Beguiled the heart, they purpled 
the air 

And allured the eye, as so everywhere 

On the rim of the wave or across it 
in swings, 

They swept or they sank in a sea of 
blooms, 

And wove and wound in a song of 
wings. 

A bird in scarlet and gold, made mad 

With sweet delights, through the 
branches slid 

And kiss’d the lake on a drowsy lid 

Till the ripples ran and the face was 
glad; 

Was glad and lovely as lights that 
sweep 

The face of heaven when the stars 
are forth 

In autumn time through the 
sapphire north, 

Or the face of a child when it smiles 
in sleep. 

And here came the Queen, in the 
tropical noon, 

When the wars and the world and 
all were asleep, 

And nothing look’d forth to betray 
or to peep 


Through the glories of jungle in 
garments of June, 

To bathe with her court in the 
waters that bent 

In the beautiful lake through tassel- 
ing trees, 

And the tangle of blooms in a burden 
of bees, 

As bold and as sharp as a bow 
unspent. 

And strangely still, and more 
strangely sweet, 

Was the lake that lay in its cradle 
of fern, 

As still as a moon with her horns 
that turn 

In the night, like lamps to white 
delicate feet. 

They came and they stood by the 
brink of the tide, 

They hung their shields on the 
boughs of the trees, 

They lean’d their lances against the 
side, 

Unloosed their sandals, and busy 
as bees 

Ungather’d their robes in the 
rustle of leaves 

That wound them as close as the 
wine-vine weaves. 

The minstrel then falter’d, and fur¬ 
ther aside 

Than ever before he averted his 
head; 

He pick’d up a pebble and fretted the 
tide 

Afar, with a countenance flushed 
and red. 




MejS of tfje &ma?ons( 


197 


He feign’d him ill, he wander’d away, 

He sat him down by the waters 
alone, 

And pray’d for pardon, as a knight 
should pray, 

And rued an error not all his own. 

The Amazons press’d to the girdle of 
reeds, 

Two and by two they advanced to 
the tide, 

They challenged each other, they 
laughed in their pride, 

And banter’d, and vaunted of valor¬ 
ous deeds. 

They push’d and they parted the 
curtains of green, 

All timid at first; then looked in the 
wave 

And laugh’d; retreated, then came 
up brave 

To the brink of the water, led on by 
their Queen. 

Again they retreated, again advanced, 

Then parted the boughs in a proud 
disdain, 

Then bent their heads to the waters, 
and glanced 

Below, then blush’d, and then 
laughed again. 

A bird awaken’d; then all dismayed 

With a womanly sense of a beauti¬ 
ful shame 

That strife and changes had left 
the same 

They shrank to the leaves and the 
somber shade. 


At last, press’d forward a beautiful pair 

And leapt to the wave, and laugh¬ 
ing they blushed 

As rich as their wines; when the 
waters rush’d 

To the dimpled limbs, and laugh’d in 
their hair. 

The fair troop follow'd with shouts 
and cheers, 

They cleft the wave, and the 
friendly ferns 

Came down in curtains and curves 
by turns, 

And a brave palm lifted a thousand 
spears. 

From under the ferns and away from 
the land, 

And out in the wave until lost 
below, 

There lay, as white as a bank of 
snow, 

A long and beautiful border of sand. 

Here clothed alone in their clouds of 
hair 

And curtain’d about by the palm 
and fern, 

And made as their maker had made 
them, fair, 

And splendid of natural curve and 
turn; 

Untrammel’d by art and untroubled 
by man 

They tested their strength, or tried 
their speed: 

And here they wrestled, and there 
they ran, 

As supple and lithe as the watery 
reed. 




198 


llsrtes of ttje Smajonfi 


The great trees shadow’d the bow- 
tipp’d tide, 

And nodded their plumes from the 
opposite side, 

As if to whisper, Take care! take 
care! 

But the meddlesome sunshine here 
and there 

Kept pointing a finger right under 
the trees,— 

Kept shifting the branches and 
wagging a hand 

At the round brown limbs on the 
border of sand, 

And seem'd to whisper: Fie! what 
are these? 

The gold-barr’d butterflies to and 
fro 

And over the waterside wander’d 
and wove 

As heedless and idle as clouds that 
rove 

And drift by the peaks of perpetual 
snow. 

A monkey swung out from a bough 
in the skies, 

White-whisker’d and ancient, and 
wisest of all 

Of his populous race, when he 
heard them call 

And he watch’d them long, with his 
head sidewise. 

He wondered much and he watch’d 
them all 

From under his brows of amber and 
brown, 

All patient and silent, and never 
once stirr'd 


Till he saw two wrestle, and 
wrestling fall; 

Then he arched his brows and he 
hasten’d him down 

To his army below and said never 
a word. 

PART IV 

There is many a love in the land , my 
love , 

But never a love like this is; 

Then kill me dead with your love , my 
love , 

And cover me up with kisses. 

Yea , kill me dead and cover me deep 

Where never a sold discovers; 

Deep in your heart to sleep , to sleep , 

In the darlingest tomb of lovers. 

The wanderer took him apart from 
the place; 

Look’d up in the boughs at the 
gold birds there, 

He envied the humming-birds fret¬ 
ting the air, 

And frowned at the butterflies fan¬ 
ning his face. 

He sat him down in a crook of the 
wave 

And away from the Amazons, 
under the skies 

Where great trees curved to a leaf- 
lined cave, 

And he lifted his hands and he 
shaded his eyes: 

And he held his head to the north 
when they came 





Sslesf of ttjc ^ma^ons 


199 


To run on the reaches of sand from 
the south, 

And he pull’d at his chin, and he 
pursed his mouth, 

And he shut his eyes, with a sense of 
shame. 

He reach’d and he shaped a bamboo 
reed 

From the brink below, and began 
to blow 

As if to himself; as the sea sometimes 

Does soothe and soothe in a low, 
sweet song, 

When his rage is spent, and the 
beach swells strong 

With sweet repetitions of alliterate 
rhymes. 

The echoes blew back from the in¬ 
dolent land; 

Silent and still sat the tropical 
bird, 

And only the sound of the reed was 
heard, 

As the Amazons ceased from their 
sports on the sand. 

They rose from the wave, and inclin¬ 
ing the head, 

They listened intent, with the 
delicate tip 

Of the finger touch’d to the pouting 
lip, 

Till the brown Queen turn’d in the 
tide, and led 

Through the opaline lake, and 
under the shade, 

To the shore where the chivalrous 
singer played. 


He bended his head and he shaded 
his eyes 

As well as he might with his lifted 
fingers, 

And ceased to sing. But in mute 
surprise 

He saw them linger as a child that 
lingers 

Allured by a song that has ceased 
in the street, 

And looks bewilder’d about from its 
play, 

For the last loved notes that fell at 
its feet. 

How the singer was vexed; he averted 
his head; 

He lifted his eyes, looked far and 
wide 

For a brief, little time; but they 
bathed at his side 

Tn spite of his will, or of prayers well 
said. 

He press’d four fingers against each 
lid, 

Till the light was gone; yet for all 
that he did 

It seem’d that the lithe forms lay and 
beat 

Afloat in his face and full under his 
feet. 

He seem’d to behold the* billowy 
breasts, 

And the rounded limbs in the rest or 
unrests— 

To see them swim as the mermaid 
swims, 

With the drifting, dimpled delicate 
limbs, 



200 


Me$ of tfje Smajonss 


Folded or hidden or reach’d or 
caress’d. 

It seems to me there is more that 
sees 

Than the eyes in man; you may 
close your eyes, 

You may turn your back, and may 
still be wise 

In sacred and marvelous mysteries. 

He saw as one sees the sun of a 
noon 

In the sun-kiss’d south, when the 
eyes are closed— 

He saw as one sees the bars of a moon 

That fall through the boughs of the 
tropical trees, 

When he lies at length, and is all 
composed, 

And asleep in his hammock by the 
sundown seas. 

He heard the waters beat, bubble and 
fret; 

He lifted his eyes, yet forever they 
lay 

Afloat in the tide; and he turn'd 
him away 

And resolved to fly and for aye to 
forget. 

He rose up strong, and he cross’d him 
twice, 

He nerved his heart and he lifted 
his head, 

He crush’d the treacherous reed in a 
trice, 

With an angry foot, and he turn’d 
and fled. 

Yet flying, he hurriedly turn’d his 
head 


With an eager glance, with meddle¬ 
some eyes, 

As a woman will turn; and he saw 
arise 

The beautiful Queen from the 
silvery bed. 

She toss’d back her hair, and she 
turned her eyes 

With all of their splendor to his as 
he fled; 

Ay, all their glory, and a strange 
surprise, 

And a sad reproach, and a world 
unsaid. 

Then she struck their shields, they 
rose in array, 

As roused from a trance, and 
hurriedly came 

From out of the wave. He wander’d 
away, 

Still fretting his sensitive soul with 
blame. 

Alone he sat in the shadows at noon, 

Alone he sat by the waters at night; 

Alone he sang, as a woman might, 

With pale, kind face to the pale, cold 
moon. 

He would here advance, and would 
there retreat, 

As a petulant child that has lost its 
way 

In the redolent walks of a sultry 
day, 

And wanders around with irresolute 
feet. 



Meg of tfje Smajong 


201 


He made him a harp of mahogany 
wood, 

He strung it well with the sounding 
strings 

Of a strong bird’s thews, and from 
ostrich wings, 

And play’d and sang in a sad, sweet 
rune. 

He hang’d his harp in the vines, 
and stood 

By the tide at night, in the palms at 
noon, 

And lone as a ghost in the shadowy 
wood. 

Then two grew sad, and alone sat 
she 

By the great, strong stream, and 
she bow’d her head, 

Then lifted her face to the tide, and 
said: 

“O pure as a tear and as strong as a 
sea, 

Yet tender to me as the touch of a 
dove, 

I had rather sit sad and alone by thee, 

Than to go and be glad, with a 
legion in love.” 

She sat one time at the wanderer’s 
side 

As the kingly water went wander¬ 
ing by; 

And the two once look’d, and they 
knew not why, 

Full sad in each other’s eyes, and 

they sigh'd. 

She courted the solitude under the 

rim 

/ 


Of the trees that reach’d to the re¬ 
solute stream, 

And gazed in the waters as one in a 
dream, 

Till her soul grew heavy and her eyes 
grew dim. 

She bow’d her head with a beautiful 
grief 

That grew from her pity; she for¬ 
got her arms, 

And she made neglect of the battle 
alarms 

That threaten’d the land; the 
banana’s leaf 

Made shelter; he lifted his harp 
again, 

She sat, she listen’d intent and 
long, 

Forgetting her care and forgetting 
her pain— 

Made sad for the singer, made 
glad for his song. 

And the women waxed cold; the 
white moons waned, 

And the brown Queen marshall’d 
them never once more, 

With sword and with shield, in the 
palms by the shore; 

But they sat them down to repose, or 
remain’d 

Apart and scatter’d in the tropic- 
leaf'd trees, 

As sadden’d by song, or for loves 
delay’d; 

Or away in the Isle in couples they 
stray’d, 

Not at all content in their Isles of 
peace. 



202 


Meg of tfje &majong 


They wander’d away to the lakes once 
more, 

Or walk’d in the moon, or they 
sigh’d or slept, 

Or they sat in pairs by the shadowy 
shore, 

And silent song with the waters 
kept. 

There was one who stood by the 
waters one eve, 

With the stars on her hair, and the 
bars of the moon 

Broken up at her feet by the 
bountiful boon 

Of extending old trees, who did 
questioning grieve; 

“ The birds they go over us two and 
by two; 

The mono is mated; his bride in the 
boughs 

Sits nursing his babe, and his pas¬ 
sionate vows 

Of love, you may hear them the whole 
day through. 

“The lizard, the cayman, the white- 
tooth’d boar, 

The serpents that glide in the 
sword-leaf’d grass, 

The beasts that abide or the birds 
that pass, 

They are glad in their loves as the 
green-leaf’d shore. 

“There is nothing that is that can 
yield one bliss 

Like an innocent love; the leaves 
have tongue 


And the tides talk low in the reeds, 
and the young 

And the quick buds open their lips 
but for this. 

“ In the steep and the starry silences, 

On the stormy levels of the limit¬ 
less seas, 

Or here in the deeps of the dark- 
brow’d trees, 

There is nothing so much as a brave 
man’s kiss. 

“There is nothing so strong, in the 
stream, on the land, 

In the valley of palms, on the 
pinnacled snow, 

In the clouds of the gods, on the 
grasses below 

As the silk-soft touch of a baby’s 
brown hand. 

“ It were better to sit and to spin on a 
stone 

The whole year through with a 
babe at the knee, 

With its brown hands reaching 
caressingly, 

Than to sit in a girdle of gold and 
alone. 

“It were better indeed to be mothers 
of men, 

And to murmur not much; there 
are clouds in the sun. 

Can a woman undo what the gods 
have done? 

Nay, the things must be as the things 
have been.” 



Ml es of ttjc 3majons 


203 


They wander’d well forth, some 
here and some there, 

Unsatisfied some and irresolute all. 

The sun w r as the same, the moon¬ 
light did fall 

Rich-barr’d and refulgent; the stars 
were as fair 

As ever were stars; the fruitful clouds 
cross’d 

And the harvest fail'd not; yet the 
fair Isles grew 

As a prison to all, and they search’d 
on through 

The magnificent shades as for things 
that were lost. 

The minstrel, more pensive, went 
deep in the wood, 

And oft-time delay’d him the whole 
day through, 

As charm’d by the deeps, or the sad 
heart drew 

Some solaces sweet from the solitude. 

The singer forsook them at last, and 
the Queen 

Came seldom then forth from the 
fierce deep wood, 

And her warriors, dark-brow’d and 
bewildering stood 

In bands by the wave in the com¬ 
plicate screen 

Of overbent boughs. They would 
lean on their spears 

And would sometimes talk, low¬ 
voiced and by twos, 

As allured by longings they could 
not refuse, 

And would sidewise look, as beset by 

i 

their fears. 


Once, wearied and sad, by the 
shadowy trees 

In the flush of the sun they sank 
to their rests, 

The dark hair veiling the beautiful 
breasts 

That rose in billows, as mists veil 
seas. 

Then away to the dream-world one 
by one; 

The great red sun in his purple was 
roll’d, 

And red-wing’d birds and the birds 
of gold 

Were above in the trees like the 
beams of the sun. 

Then the sun came down, on his 
ladders of gold 

Built up of his beams, and the 
souls arose 

And ascended on these, and the 
fair repose 

Of the negligent forms was a feast to 
behold. 

The round brown limbs they were 
reach’d or drawn, 

The grass made dark with the 
fervour of hair; 

And here were the rose-red lips and 
there 

A flush’d breast rose like a sun at a 
dawn. 

Then black-wing’d birds flew over in 
pair, 

Listless and slow, as they call’d of 
the seas 





204 


Mess of tf je gmajons 


And sounds came down through 
the tangle of trees 

As lost, and nestled, and hid in their 
hair. 

They started disturb'd, they sprang 
as at war 

To lance and to shield; but the 
dolorous sound 

Was gone from the wood; they 
gazed around 

And saw but the birds, black-wing’d 
and afar. 

They gazed at each other, then turn’d 
them unheard, 

Slow trailing their lances, in long 
single line; 

They moved through the forest, all 
dark as the sign 

Of death that fell down from the 
ominous bird. 

Then the great sun died, and a rose- 
red bloom 

Grew over his grave in a border of 
gold, 

And a cloud with a silver-white 
rim was roll'd 

Like a cold gray stone at the door of 
his tomb. 

Strange voices were heard, sad visions 
were seen 

By sentries, betimes, on the op¬ 
posite shore, 

Where broad boughs bended their 
curtains of green 

Far over the wave with their 
tropical store. 


A sentry bent low on her palms and 
she peer’d 

Suspiciously through; and, heavens! 
a man, 

Low-brow'd and wicked, looked back¬ 
ward, and jeer’d 

And taunted right full in her face 
as he ran: 

A low crooked man, with eyes like a 
bird,— 

As round and as cunning,—who came 
from the land 

Of lakes, where the cloucfs lie low 
and at hand, 

And the songs of the bent black swans 
are heard; 

Where men are most cunning and 
cruel withal, 

And are famous as spies, and are 
supple and fleet, 

And are webb’d like the water- 
fowl under the feet, 

And they swim like the swans, and 
like pelicans call. 

And again, on a night when the moon 
she was not, 

A sentry saw stealing, as still as a 
dream, 

A sudden canoe down the mid of 
the stream, 

Like the dark boat of death, and as 
still as a thought. 

And lo! as it pass'd, from the prow 
there arose 

A dreadful and gibbering, hairy 
old man, 



3feles of tfjc &ma$onjS 


205 


Loud laughing as only a maniac 
can, 

And shaking a lance at the land of his 
foes; 

Then sudden it vanish’d, as still as it 
came, 

Far down through the walls of the 
shadowy wood, 

And the great moon rose like a forest 
aflame, 

All threat’ning, sullen, and red like 
blood. 

PART V 

Well, we have threaded through and 
through 

The gloaming forests, Fairy Isles, 
Afloat in sun and summer smiles, 

As fallen stars in fields of blue; 

Some futile wars with subtile love 
That mortal never vanquish'd yet, 

Some symphonies by angels set 
In wave below, in bough above, 

Were yours and mine; but here adieu. 

And if it come to pass some days 
That you grow weary, sad, and you 
Lift up deep eyes from dusty ways 
Of mart and moneys to the blue 
And pure cold waters, isle and vine, 
And bathe you there, and then arise 
Refresh'd by one fresh thought of mine, 
I rest content: I kiss your eyes, 

I kiss your hair, in my delight: 

I kiss my hand, and say, “ Good-night." 

I tell you that love is the bitterest 
sweet 

That ever laid hold on the heart of 
a man; 


A chain to the soul, and to cheer as 
a ban, 

And a bane to the brain and a snare 
to the feet. 

Aye! who shall ascend on the hollow 
white wings 

Of love but to fall; to fall and to 
learn, 

Like a moth, or a man, that the 
lights lure to burn, 

That the roses have thorns and the 
honey-bee stings? 

I say to you surely that grief shall 
befall; 

I lift you my finger, I caution you 
true, 

And yet you go forward, laugh 
gaily, and you 

Must learn for yourself, then lament 
for us all. 

You had better be drown’d than to 
love and to dream. 

It were better to sit on a moss- 
grown stone, 

And away from the sun, forever 
alone, 

Slow pitching white pebbles at trout 
in a stream. 

Alas for a heart that must live forlorn! 

If you live you must love; if you 
love, regret— 

It were better, perhaps, had you 
never been bom, 

Or better, at least, you could well 
forget. 



206 


Ssles of tfjc 0majom( 


The clouds are above us and snowy 
and cold, 

And what is beyond but the steel 
gray sky, 

And the still far stars that twinkle 
and lie 

Like the eyes of a love or delusions of 
gold! 

Ah! who would ascend? The clouds 
are above. 

Aye! all things perish; to rise is to 
fall. 

And alack for lovers, and alas for 
love, 

And alas that we ever were born 
at all. 


The minstrel now stood by the border 
of wood, 

But now not alone; with a resolute 
heart 

He reach’d his hand, like to one 
made strong, 

Forgot his silence and resumed his 
song, 

And aroused his soul, and assumed his 
part 

With a passionate will, in the palms 
where he stood. 

'‘She is sweet as the breath of the 
Castile rose, 

She is warm to the heart as a world 
of wine, 

And as rich to behold as the rose that 
grows 

With its red heart bent to the tide 
of the Rhine. 


“I shall sip her lips as the brown 
bees sup 

From the great gold heart of the 
buttercup! 

I shall live and love! I shall have 
my day, 

And die in my time, and who shall 
gainsay? 

‘ ‘What boots me the battles that I 
have fought 

With self for honor? My brave 
resolves? 

And who takes note? The soul 
dissolves 

In a sea of love, and the wars are 
forgot. 

“The march of men, and the drift of 
ships, 

The dreams of fame, and desires 
for gold, 

Shall go for aye as a tale that is 
told, 

Nor divide for a day my lips from 
her lips. 

“And a knight shall rest, and none 
shall say nay, 

In a green Isle wash’d by an arm 
of the seas, 

And walled from the world by the 
white Andes: 

The years are of age and can go their 
way.” 


A sentinel stood on the farther¬ 
most land, 

And struck her shield, and her sword 
in hand, 




207 


Sales of tfje &majons 


She cried, “He comes with his 
silver spears, 

With flint-tipp’d arrows and bended 
bows, 

To take our blood though we give 
him tears, 

And to flood our Isle in a world of 

woes! 

“ He comes, O Queen of the sun-kiss’d 
Isle, 

He comes as a wind comes, blown 
from the seas, 

In cloud of canoes, on the curling 
breeze, 

With his shields of tortoise and of 
crocodile!” 

••••••• 

Sweeter than swans' are a maiden’s 
graces! 

Sweeter than fruits are the kisses of 
morn! 

Sweeter than babes’ is a love new¬ 
born, 

But sweeter than all are a love’s 
embraces. 

The Queen was at peace. Her terms 
of surrender 

To love, who knows? and who can 
defend her? 

She slept at peace, and the sentry’s 
warning 

Could scarce awaken the love- 
conquer’d Queen; 

She slept at peace in the opaline 

Hush and blush of that tropical 
morning; 

And bound about by the twining glory, 

Vine and trellis in the vernal morn, 


As still and sweet as a babe new¬ 
born, 

The brown Queen dream’d of the old 
new story. 

But hark! her sentry’s passionate 
words, 

The sound of shields, and the clash 
of swords! 

And slow she came, her head on her 
breast, 

And her two hands held as to plead 
for rest. 

Where, O where, were the Juno 
graces? 

Where, O where, was the glance of 
Jove, 

As the Queen came forth from the 
sacred places, 

Hidden away in the heart of the 
grove? 

They rallied around as of old,—they 
besought her, 

With swords to the sun and the 
sounding shield, 

To lead them again to the glorious 
field, 

So sacred to Freedom; and, breath¬ 
less, they brought her 

Her buckler and sword, and her armor 
all bright 

With a thousand gems enjewell’d in 
gold. 

She lifted her head with the look of 
old 

An instant only; with all of her 
might 

She sought to be strong and majestic 
again: 



208 


Mhs of tfjc Smajontf 


She bared them her arms and her 
ample brown breast; 

They lifted her armor, they strove 
to invest 

Her form in armor, but they strove in 
vain. 

It could close no more, but it clang’d 
on the ground, 

Like the fall of a knight, with an 
ominous sound, 

And she shook her hair and she 
cried “Alas! 

That love should come and liberty 
pass;” 

And she cried, “Alas! to be cursed 
. . . and bless’d 

For the nights of love and noons of 
rest.” 

Her warriors wonder’d; they wan¬ 
der’d apart, 

And trail’d their swords, and sub¬ 
dued their eyes 

To earth in sorrow and in hush’d 
surprise, 

And forgot themselves in their pity 
of heart. 

“O Isles of the sun,” sang the blue¬ 
eyed youth, 

“O Edens new-made and let down 
from above! 

Be sacred to peace and to passion¬ 
ate love, 

Made happy in peace and made holy 
with truth.” 

The fair Isle fill’d with the fierce 
invader; 


They form’d on the strand, they 
lifted their spears, 

Where never was man for years 
and for years, 

And moved on the Queen. She 
lifted and laid her 

Finger-tips to her lips. For O sweet 

Was the song of love as the love 
new-born, 

That the minstrel blew in the virgin 
morn, 

Away where the trees and the soft 
sands meet. 

The strong men lean’d and their 
shields let fall, 

And slowly they came with their 
trailing spears, 

And heads bow’d down as if bent 
with years, 

And an air of gentleness over them alb 

The men grew glad as the song as¬ 
cended, 

They lean’d their lances against 
the palms, 

They reach’d their arms as to reach 
for alms, 

And the Amazons came—and their 
reign was ended. 


The tawny old crone here lays her 
stone 

On the leaning grass and reaches a 
hand; 

The day like a beautiful dream has 
flown, 

The curtains of night come down 
on the land, 




iHn inbiau Summer 


209 


And I dip to the oars; but ere I 
go, 

I tip her an extra bright pesos 
or so, 


And I smile my thanks, for I think 
them due: 

But, reader, fair reader, now what 
think you? 


AN INDIAN SUMMER 


The world it is wide; men go their 
ways 

But love he is wise, and of ail the hours 
And of all the beautiful sun-born days, 
He sips their sweets as the bee sips 
flowers. 

The sunlight lay in gather’d 
sheaves 

Along the ground, the golden leaves 
Possess’d the land and lay in bars 
Above the lifted lawn of green 
Beneath the feet, or fell, as stars 
Fall, slantwise, shimmering and still 
Upon the plain, upon the hill, 

And heaving hill and plain between. 

Some steeds in panoply were seen, 
Strong, martial trained, with manes 
in air, 

And tassell'd reins and mountings 
rare; 

Some silent people here and there, 
That gather’d leaves with listless will, 
Or moved adown the dappled green, 
Or look’d away with idle gaze 
Against the gold and purple haze. 
You might have heard red leaflets fall, 
The pheasant on the farther hill, 

A single, lonely, locust trill, 

Or sliding sable cricket call 

From out the grass, but that was all. 


A wanderer of many lands 
Was I, a weary Ishmaelite, 

That knew the sign of lifted hands; 
Had seen the Crescent-mosques, had 
seen 

The Druid oaks of Aberdeen— 
Recross’d the hilly seas, and saw r 
The sable pines of Mackinaw, 

And lakes that lifted cold and white. 

I saw the sweet Miami, saw 
The swift Ohio bent and roll'd 
Between his woody walls of gold, 
The Wabash banks of gray pawpaw, 
The Mississippi's ash; at morn 
Of autumn, when the oak is red, 

Saw slanting pyramids of corn, 

The level fields of spotted swine, 

The crooked lanes of lowing kine, 
And in the burning bushes saw 
The face of God, with bended head. 

But when I saw her face, I said, 

1 ‘ Earth has no fruits so fairly red 
As these that swing above my head; 
No purpled leaf, no poppied land, 
Like this that lies in reach of hand/’ 

And, soft, unto myself I said: 

‘ ‘ O soul, inured to rue and rime, 

To barren toil and bitter bread, 

To biting rime, to bitter rue, 


14 





210 &n 3 nbian 

Earth is not Nazareth; be good. 

O sacred Indian-summer time 
Of scarlet fruits, of fragrant wood, 

Of purpled clouds, of curling haze— 

O days of golden dreams, and days 
Of banish’d, vanish’d tawny men, 

Of martial songs of manly deeds— 

Be fair today, and bear me true.” 

We mounted, turn’d the sudden steeds 
Toward the yellow hills and flew. 

My faith, but she rode fair, and she 
Had scarlet berries in her hair, 

And on her hands white starry stones. 
The satellites of many thrones 
Fall down before her gracious air 
I n that full season. Fair to see 
Are pearly shells, red, virgin gold, 

And yellow fruits, and sun-down seas, 
And babes sun-brown; but all of 
these 

And all fair things of sea besides, 
Before the matchless, manifold 
Accomplishments of her who rides 
With autumn summer in her hair, 

And knows her steed and holds her 
fair 

And stately in her stormy seat, 

They lie like playthings at her feet. 

By heaven! she was more than fair, 
And more than good, and matchless 
wise, 

With all the lovelight in her eyes, 

And all the midnight in her hair. 

Through leafy avenues and lanes, 
And lo! we climb’d the yellow hills, 
With russet leaves about the brows 
That reach’d from over-reaching 
trees. 


Summer 

With purpled briars to the knees 
Of steeds that fretted foamy thews 
We turn’d to look a time below 
Beneath the ancient arch of boughs, 
That bent above us as a bow 
Of promise, bound in many hues. 

I reach’d my hand. I could refuse 
All fruits but this, the touch of her 
At such a time. But lo! she lean’d 
With lifted face and soul, and leant 
As leans devoutest worshipper, 
Beyond the branches scarlet screen’d 
And look’d above me and beyond, 

So fix’d and silent, still and fond, 

She seem’d the while she look’d to 
lose 

Her very soul in such intent. 

She look’d on other things, but I, 

I saw nor scarlet leaf nor sky; 

I look’d on her, and only her. 

Afar the city lay in smokes 
Of battle, and the martial strokes 
Of Progress thunder’d through the 
land 

And struck against the yellow trees, 
And roll’d in hollow echoes on 
Like sounding limits of the seas 
That smite the shelly shores at 
dawn. 

Beyond, below, on either hand 
There reach’d a lake in belt of pine, 
A very dream; a distant dawn 
Asleep in all the autumn shine, 

Some like one of another land 
That I once laid a hand upon, 

And loved too well, and named as 
mine. 



&n 3 nbtan Summer 


211 


She sometimes touch’d with dimpl’d 
hand 

The drifting mane with dreamy air, 
She sometimes push’d aback her hair; 
But still she lean’d and look’d afar, 
As silent as the statues stand,— 

For what? For falling leaf? For 
star 

That runs before the bride of 
death? . . . 

The elements were still; a breath 
Stirr’d not, the level western sun 
Pour’d in his arrows every one; 
Spill’d all his wealth of purpled red 
On velvet poplar leaf below, 

On arching chestnut overhead 
In all the hues of heaven’s bow. 

She sat the upper hill, and high. 

I spurr’d my black steed to her 
side; 

“The bow of promise, lo!” I cried, 
And lifted up my eyes to hers 
With all the fervid love that stirs 
The blood of men beneath the sun, 
And reach’d my hand, as one undone, 
In suppliance to hers above: 

“The bow of promise! give me love! 

I reach a hand, I rise or fall, 
Henceforth from this: put forth a 
hand 

From your high place and let me 
stand— 

Stand soul and body, white and tall! 
Why, I would live for you, would die 
Tomorrow, but to live today, 

Give me but love, and let me live 
To die before you. I can pray 
To only you, because I know, 

If you but give what I bestow, 

That God has nothing left to give.’’ 


Christ! still her stately head was 
raised, 

And still she silent sat and gazed 
Beyond the trees, beyond the town, 
To where the dimpled waters slept, 
Nor splendid eyes once bended down 
To eyes that lifted up and wept. 

She spake not, nor subdued her 
head 

To note a hand or heed a word; 

And then I question’d if she heard 
My life-tale on that leafy hill, 

Or any fervid word I said, 

And spoke with bold, vehement will. 

* 

She moved, and from her bridle 
hand 

She slowly drew the dainty glove, 
Then gazed again upon the land. 

The dimpled hand, a snowy dove 
Alit, and moved along the mane 
Of glossy skeins; then, overbold, 

It fell across the mane, and lay 
Before my eyes a sweet bouquet 
Of cluster’d kisses, white as snow. 

I should have seized it reaching so, 
But something bade me back,—a 
ban; 

Around the third fair finger ran 
A shining, hateful hoop of gold. 

Ay, then I turn’d, I look’d away, 

I sudden felt forlorn and chill; 

I whistled, like, for want to say, 

And then I said, with bended head, 
“Another’s ship from other shores, 
With richer freight, with fairer stores, 
Shall come to her some day instead ”; 
Then turn’d about,—and all was 
still. 



212 


Sn Snluan Summer 


Yea, you had chafed at this, and 
cried, 

And laugh’d with bloodless lips, and 
said 

Some bitter things to sate your pride, 
And toss’d aloft a lordly head, 

And acted well some wilful lie, 

And, most like, cursed yourself—but 
I . . . 

Well, you be crucified, and you 
Be broken up with lances through 
The soul, then you may turn to find 
Some ladder-rounds in keenest rods, 
Some solace in the bitter rind, 

Some favor with the gods irate— 

The everlasting anger’d gods— 

And ask not overmuch of fate. 

I was not born, was never bless’d, 
With cunning ways, nor wit, nor skill 
In woman’s ways, nor words of love, 
Nor fashion’d suppliance of will. 

A very clown, I think, had guess’d 
How out of place and plain I seem’d; 
I, I, the idol-worshiper, 

Who saw nor maple leaves nor sky 
But took some touch and hue of her. 

I am a pagan, heathen, lo! 

A savage man, of savage lands; 

Too quick to love, too slow to know 
The sign that tame love understands. 


Some heedless hoofs went sounding 
down 

The broken way. The woods were 
brown, 

And homely now; some idle talk 
Of folk and town; a broken walk; 


But sounding feet made song no more 
For me along that leafy shore. 

The sun caught up his gathered 
sheaves; 

A squirrel caught a nut and ran * 

A rabbit rustled in the leaves, 

A whirling bat, black-wing’d and tan, 
Blew swift between us; sullen night 
Fell down upon us; mottled kine, 
With lifted heads, went lowing down 
The rocky ridge toward the town, 
And all the woods grew dark as wine. 

• • * • • • • 

Yea, bless’d Ohio’s banks are fair; 

A sunny clime and good to touch, 

For tamer men of gentler mien, 

But as for me, another scene. 

A land below the Alps I know, 

Set well with grapes and girt with 
much 

Of woodland beauty; I shall share 
My rides by night below the light 
Of Mauna Loa, ride below 
The steep and starry Hebron height; 
Shall lift my hands in many lands, 
See South Sea palm, see Northland 
fir, 

See white-winged swans, see red- 
bill’d doves; 

See many lands and many loves, 

But never more the face of her. 

And what her name or now the 
place 

Of her who makes my Mecca’s prayer, 
Concerns you not; not any trace 
Of entrance to my temple’s shrine 
Remains. The memory is mine, 

And none shall pass the portals thera 



Jfrom ika to §?ea 


213 


I see the gold and purple gleam 
Of autumn leaves, a reach of seas, 

A silent rider like a dream 
Moves by, a mist of mysteries, 

And these are mine, and only these, 
Yet they be more in my esteem, 
Than silver’d sails on corall’d seas. 

The present! take it, hold it thine, 
But that one hour out from all 


The years that are, or yet shall 
fall, 

I pluck it out, I name it mine; 

That hour bound in sunny sheaves, 
With tassell’d shocks of golden shine, 
That hour wound in scarlet leaves, 

Is mine. I stretch a hand and 
swear 

An oath that breaks into a prayer; 
By heaven, it is wholly mine! 


FROM SEA TO SEA 


Lo! here sit we by the sun-down seas 

And the White Sierras. The sweet 
sea-breeze 

Is about us here; and a sky so fair 

Is bending above , so cloudless , blue, 

That you gaze and you gaze and you 
dream , and you 

See God and the portals of heaven there. 

Shake hands! kiss hands in haste to 
the sea, 

Where the sun comes in, and mount 
with me 

The matchless steed of the strong 
New World, 

As he champs and chafes with a 
strength untold,— 

And away to the West where the 
waves are curl’d, 

As they kiss white palms to the capes 
of gold! 

A girth of brass and a breast of 
steel, 

A breath of flame and a flaming mane, 

An iron hoof and a steel-clad heel, 


A Mexican bit and a massive chain 

Well tried and wrought in an iron 
rein; 

And away! away! with a shout and 
yell 

That had stricken a legion of old with 
fear, 

They had started the dead from their 
graves whilere, 

And startled the damn’d in hell as 
well. 

Stand up! stand out! where the 
wind comes in 

And the wealth of the sea pours over 
you, 

As its health floods up to the face like 
wine, 

And a breath blows up from the 
Delaware 

And the Susquehanna. We feel the 
might 

Of armies in us; the blood leaps 
through 

The frame with a fresh and a keen 
delight 







214 


Jfrom £§>ea to ibea 


As the Alleghanies have kiss’d the 
hair, 

With a kiss blown far through the 
rush and din, 

By the chestnut burrs and through 
boughs of pine. 

O seas in a land! O lakes of mine! 

By the love I bear and the songs I 
bring 

Be glad with me! lift your waves and 
sing 

A song in the reeds that surround 
your isles!— 

A song of joy for this sun that smiles, 

For this land I love and this age and 
sign; 

For the peace that is and the perils 
pass’d; 

For the hope that is and the rest at 
last! 

O heart of the world’s heart! 
West! my West! 

Look up! look out! There are fields 
of kine, 

There are clover-fields that are red as 
wine; 

And a world of kine in the fields take 
rest, 

As they ruminate in the shade of trees 

That are white with blossoms or 
brown with bees. 

There are emerald seas of corn and 
cane; 

There are isles of oak on the harvest 
plain, 

Where brawn men bend to the bend¬ 
ing grain; 


There are temples of God and tovvns 
new born, 

And beautiful homes of beautiful 
brides; 

And the hearts of oak and the hands 
of horn 

Have fashion’d all these and a world 
besides . . . 

A rush of rivers and a brush of 
trees, 

A breath blown far from the Mexican 

seas, 

And over the great heart-vein of 
earth! 

... By the South-Sun-land of the 
Cherokee, 

By the scalp-lock-lodge of the tall 
Pawnee, 

And up La Platte. What a weary 
dearth 

Of the homes of men! What a wild 
delight 

Of space! of room! What a sense of 
seas, 

Where the seas are not! What a 
salt-like breeze! 

What dust and taste of quick alkali! 

. . . Then hills! green, brown, then 
black like night, 

All fierce and defiant against the sky! 

At last! at last! O steed new-born, 

Born strong of the will of the strong 
New World, 

We shoot to the summit, with the 
shafts of morn, 

On the mount of Thunder, where 
clouds are curl’d, 

Below in a splendor of the sun-clad 

seas. 



Jfrom is>ea to H>ea 


215 


A kiss of welcome on the warm west 
breeze 

Blows up with a smell of the fragrant 
pine, 

And a faint, sweet fragrance from 
the far-off seas 

Comes in through the gates of the 
great South Pass, 

And thrills the soul like a flow of wine. 

The hare leaps low in the storm-bent 
grass, 

The mountain ram from his cliff looks 
back, 

The brown deer hies to the tamarack; 

And afar to the South with a sound of 
the main, 

Roll buffalo herds to the limitless 
plain. . . . 

On, on, o’er the summit; and 
onward again, 

And down like the sea-dove the billow 
enshrouds, 

And down like the swallow that dips 
to the sea, 

We dart and we dash and we quiver 
and we 

Are blowing to heaven white billows 
of clouds. 

Thou “City of Saints!” O antique 
men, 

And men of the Desert as the men of 
old! 

Stand up! be glad! When the truths 
are told, 

When Time has utter’d his truths 
and when 

His hand has lifted the things to fame 

From the mass of things to be known 
no more, 


A monument set in the desert sand, 
A pyramid rear’d on an inland shore, 
And their architects shall have place 
and name. 

The Humboldt desert and the 
alkaline land, 

And the seas of sage and of arid sand 
That stretch away till the strain'd 
eye carries 

The soul where the infinite spaces fill, 
Are far in the rear, and the fierce 
Sierras 

Are under our feet, and the hearts 
beat high 

And the blood comes quick; but the 
lips are still 

With awe and wonder, and all the will 
Is bow’d with a grandeur that frets 
the sky. 

A flash of lakes through the 
fragrant trees, 

A song of birds and a sound of bees 
Above in the boughs of the sugar- 
pine. 

The pick-ax stroke in the placer mine, 
The boom of blasts in the gold-ribbed 
hills, 

The grizzly’s growl in the gorge below 
Are dying away, and the sound of rills 
From the far-off shimmering crest of 
snow, 

The laurel green and the ivied oak, 

A yellow stream and a cabin’s smoke, 
The brown bent hills and the shep¬ 
herd’s call, 

The hills of vine and of fruits, and all 
The sweets of Eden are here, and we 
Look out and afar to a limitless 
sea. 





216 


ie in tfje 30 esert 


We have lived an age in a half 
moon-wane! 

We have seen a world! We have 
chased the sun 

From sea to sea; but the task is done. 
We here descend to the great white 
main—• 

To the King of Seas, with its temples 
bare 

And a tropic breath on the brow and 
hair. 

THE SHIP IN 

A wild, wide land of mysteries, 

Of sea-salt lakes and dried up seas, 

A nd lonely wells and pools; a land 
That seems so like dead Palestine, 

Save that its wastes have no confine 
Till push'd agamst the levell'd skies. 

A land from out whose depths shall rise 
The new-time prophets. Yea, the land 
From out whose awful depths shall 
come, 

A lowly man, with dusty feet, 

A man fresh from his Maker's hand, 

A singer singing oversweet, 

A charmer charming very wise; 

And then all men shall not he dumb. 
Nay, not be dumb; for he shall say, 

“ Take heed, for I prepare the way 
For weary feet." Lo! from this land 
Of Jordan streams and dead sea sand, 
The Christ shall come when next the 
race 

Of man shall look upon His face. 

I 

A man in middle Aridzone 
Stood by the desert’s edge alone, 


We are hush’d with wonder, we 
stand apart, 

We stand in silence; the heaving heart 
Fills full of heaven, and then the 
knees 

Go down in worship on the golden 
sands. 

With faces seaward, and with folded 
hands 

We gaze on the boundless, white 
Balboa seas. 

THE DESERT 

And long he look’d, and lean’d and 
peer’d, 

And twirl’d and twirl’d his twist’d 
beard, 

Beneath a black and slouchy hat— 
Nay, nay, the tale is not of that. 

A skin-clad trapper, toe-a-tip, 
Stood on a mountain top; and he 
Look’d long, and still, and eagerly. 

“ It looks so like some lonesome ship 
That sails this ghostly, lonely sea,— 
This dried-up desert sea,” said he, 
“These tawny sands of buried 
seas”— 

Avaunt! this tale is not of these! 

A chief from out the desert’s rim 
Rode swift as twilight swallows swim, 
And O! his supple steed was fleet! 
About his breast flapped panther 
skins, 

About his eager flying feet 
Flapp’d beaded, braided moccasins: 
He stopp’d, stock still, as still as 
stone, 




217 


®|!c iblnp in tljc desert 


He loan'd, he look’d, there glisten’d 
bright, 

From out the yellow, yielding sand, 

A golden cup with jewell’d rim. 

He lean’d him low, he reach’d a 
hand, 

He caught it up, he gallop’d on, 

He turn’d his head, he saw a sight— 
His panther-skins flew to the wind, 
He rode into the rim of night; 

The dark, the desert lay behind; 

The tawny Ishmaelite was gone. 

He reach’d the town, and there 
held up 

Above his head the jewell’d cup. 

He put two fingers to his lip, 

He whisper’d wild, he stood a-tip, 
And lean’d the while with lifted hand, 
And said, “A ship lies yonder dead,” 
And said, “Such things lie sown in 
sand 

In yon far desert dead and brown, 
Beyond where wave-wash’d walls 
look down, 

As thick as stars set overhead.” 

“ ’Tis from that desert ship,” they 
said, 

“ That sails with neither sail nor 
breeze 

The lonely bed of dried-up seas,— 

A galleon that sank below 
White seas ere Red men drew the 
bow.” 

By Arizona’s sea of sand 
Some bearded miners, gray and old, 
And resolute in search of gold, 

Sat down to tap the savage land. 


A miner stood beside the mine, 

He pull’d his beard, then looked away 
Across the level sea of sand, 

Beneath his broad and hairy hand, 

A hand as hard as knots of pine. 

“It looks so like a sea,” said he. 

He pull’d his beard, and he did say, 

“ It looks just like a dried-up sea.” 
Again he pull’d that beard of his, 

But said no other thing than this. 

A stalwart miner dealt a stroke, 
And struck a buried beam of oak. 

The miner twisted, twirl’d his beard, 
Lean’d on his pick-ax as he spoke: 

“ ’Tis that same long-lost ship,” he 
said, 

“ Some laden ship of Solomon 
That sail’d these lonesome seas upon 
In search of Ophir’s mine, ah me! 
That sail’d this dried-up desert sea.” 

II 

Now this the tale. Along the wide 
Missouri’s stream some silent braves, 
That stole along the farther side 
Through sweeping wood that swept 
the waves 

Like long arms reach’d across the 
tide, 

Kept watch and every foe defied. 

A low, black boat that hugg’d the 
shores, 

An ugly boat, an ugly crew, 
Thick-lipp’d and woolly-headed 
slaves, 

That bow’d, and bent the white-ash 
oars, 

That cleft the murky waters through, 



218 


®f)e S>i)ip in tfje ©egert 


Slow climb’d the swift Missouri’s 
waves. 

A grand old Neptune in the prow, 
Gray-hair’d, and white with touch of 
time, 

Yet strong as in his middle prime, 
Stood up, turn’d suddenly, look’d 
back 

Along his low boat’s wrinkled track, 
Then drew his mantle tight, and now 
He sat all silently. Beside 
The grim old sea-king sat his bride, 

A sun land blossom, rudely torn 
From tropic forests to be worn 
Above as stern a breast as e’er 
Stood king at sea, or anywhere. 

Another boat with other crew 
Came swift and cautious in her track, 
And now shot shoreward, now shot 
back, 

And now sat rocking fro and to, 

But never once lost sight of her. 

Tall, sunburnt, southern men were 
these 

From isles of blue Caribbean seas, 
And one, that woman’s worshiper, 
Who look’d on her, and loved but her. 

And one, that one, was wild as seas 
That wash the far, dark Oregon. 

And one, that one, had eyes to teach 
The art of love, and tongue to preach 
Life’s hard and sober homilies, 

While he stood leaning, urging on. 

Ill 

Pursuer and pursued. And who 
Are these that make the sable crew; 


These mighty Titans, black and nude, 
Who dare this Red man’s solitude? 

And who is he that leads them here, 
And breaks the hush of wave and 
wood? 

Comes he for evil or for good? 

Brave Jesuit or bold buccaneer? 

Nay, these be idle themes. Let 
pass. 

These be but men. We may forget 
The wild sea-king, the tawny brave, 
The frowning wold, the woody shore, 
The tall-built, sunburnt man of Mars. 
But what and who was she, the fair? 
The fairest face that ever yet 
Look’d in a wave as in a glass; 

That look’d, as look the still, far 
stars, 

So woman-like, into the wave 
To contemplate their beauty there? 

I only saw her, heard the sound 
Of murky waters gurgling round 
In counter-currents from the shore, 
But heard the long, strong stroke of 
oar 

Against the water gray and vast; 

I only saw her as she pass’d— 

A great, sad beauty, in whose eyes 
Lay all the peace of Paradise. 

O you had loved her sitting there, 
Half hidden in her loosen’d hair; 

Yea, loved her for her large dark eyes, 
Her push’d out mouth, her mute sur¬ 
prise— 

Her mouth! ’twas Egypt’s mouth of 
old, 

Push’d out and pouting full and bold 



i&fnp in tfje Betfert 


219 


With simple beauty where she sat. 
Why, you had said, on seeing her, 
This creature comes from out the dim, 
Far centuries, beyond the rim 
Of time’s remotest reach or stir; 

And he who wrought Semiramis 
And shaped the Sibyls, seeing this, 
Had kneeled and made a shrine 
thereat, 

And all his life had worshipp’d her. 

IV 

The black men bow’d, the long oars 
bent, 

They struck as if for sweet life’s sake, 
And one look’d back, but no man 
spake, 

And all wills bent to one intent. 

On, through the golden fringe of day 
Into the deep, dark night, away 
And up the wave ’mid walls of wood 
They cleft, they climb’d, they bow’d, 
they bent, 

But one stood tall, and restless stood, 
And one sat still all night, all day, 
And gazed in helpless wonderment. 

Her hair pour’d down like darkling 
wine, 

The black men lean’d a sullen line, 
The bent oars kept a steady song, 
And all the beams of bright sunshine 
That touch’d the waters wild and 
strong, 

f ell drifting down and out of sight 
Like fallen leaves, and it was night. 

And night and day, and many days 
They climb’d the sullen, dark gray 
tide. 


And she sat silent at his side, 

And he sat turning many ways; 

Sat watching for his wily foe. 

At last he baffled him. And yet 
His brow gloom’d dark, his lips were 
set; 

He lean’d, he peer’d through boughs, 
as though 

From heart of forests deep and dim 
Grim shapes might come confronting 
him. 

A stern, uncommon man was he, 
Broad-shoulder’d, as of Gothic form, 
Strong-built, and hoary like a sea; 

A high sea broken up by storm. 

His face was brown and over-wrought 
By seams and shadows born of 
thought, 

Not over-gentle. And his eyes, 

Bold, restless, resolute and deep, 

Too deep to flow like shallow fount 
Of common men where waters 
mount;— 

Fierce, lumined eyes, where flames 
might rise 

Instead of flood, and flash and 
sweep— 

Strange eyes, that look'd unsatisfied 
With all things fair or otherwise; 

As if his inmost soul had cried 
All time for something yet unseen, 
Some long-desired thing denied. 

V 

Below the overhanging boughs 
The oars lay idle at the last; 

Yet long he look’d for hostile prows 
From out the wood and down the 
stream. 



220 


Ws>t S>f)ip ttt tfjc ©esert 


They came not, and he came to dream 
Pursuit abandon’d, danger past. 

He fell’d the oak, he built a home 
Of new-hewn wood with busy hand, 
And said, “My wanderings are told,” 
And said, “No more by sea, by land, 
vShall I break rest, or drift, or roam, 
For I am worn, and I grow old.” 

And there, beside that surging tide, 
Where gray waves meet, and wheel, 
and strike, 

The man sat down as satisfied 
To sit and rest unto the end; 

As if the strong man here had foand 
A sort of brother in this sea,— 

This surging, sounding majesty, 

Of troubled water, so profound, 

So sullen, strong, and lion-like, 

So lawless in its every round. 

Hast seen Missouri cleave the wood 
In sounding whirlpools to the sea? 
What soul hath known such majesty? 
What man stood by and understood? 

VI 

Now long the long oars idle lay. 
The cabin’s smoke came forth and 
curl'd 

Right lazily from river brake, 

And Time went by the other way. 
And who was she, the strong man’s 
pride, 

This one fair woman of his world? 

A captive? Bride, or not a bride? 
Her eyes, men say, grew sad and dim 
With watching from the river’s rim, 
As waiting for some face denied. 


Yea, who was she? none ever knew. 
The great, strong river swept around 
The cabin nestled in its bend, 

B ut kept its secrets. Wild birds flew 
In bevies by. The black men found 
Diversion in the chase; and wide 
Old Morgan ranged the wood, nor 
friend 

Nor foeman ever sought his side, 

Or shared his forests deep and dim, 
Or cross'd his path or question’d him. 

He stood as one who found and 
named 

The middle world. What visions 
flamed 

Athwart the west! What prophe¬ 
cies 

Were his, the gray old man, that day 
Who stood alone and look’d away,— 
Awest from out the w r aving trees, 
Against the utter sundown seas. 

Alone ofttime beside the stream 
He stood and gazed as in a dream,— 
As if he knew a life unknown 
To those who knew him thus alone. 
His eyes were gray and overborne 
By shaggy brows, his strength was 
shorn, 

Yet still he ever gazed awest, 

As one that would not, could not rest. 

And had he fled with bloody hand? 
Or had he loved some Helen fair, 

And battling lost both land and 
towm? 

Say, did he see his walls go down, 
Then choose from all his treasures 
there 

This one, and seek some other land? 




g>f)tp tn tfjc Betfert 


221 


VII 

The squirrels chatter’d in the 
leaves, 

The turkeys call’d from pawpaw 
wood, 

The deer with lifted nostrils stood, 
’Mid climbing blossoms sweet with 
bee, 

’Neath snow-white rose of Cherokee. 

Then frosts hung ices on the eaves, 
Then cushion snows possess’d the 
ground, 

And so the seasons kept their round; 
Yet still old Morgan went and came 
From cabin door through forest dim, 
Through wold of snows, through 
wood of flame, 

Through golden Indian-summer days, 
Hung red with soft September haze, 
And no man cross’d or questioned 
him. 

Nay, there was that in his stern air 
That held e’en these rude men aloof; 
None came to share the broad-built 
roof 

That rose so fortress-like beside 
The angry, rushing, sullen tide, 

And only black men gather’d there, 
The old man’s slaves in dull content, 
Black, silent, and obedient. 

Then men push’d westward through 
his wood, 

His wild beasts fled, and now he stood 
Confronting men. He had endear’d 
No man, but still he went and came 
Apart, and shook his beard and strode 
His ways alone, and bore his load, 


If load it were, apart, alone. 

Then men grew busy with a name 
That no man loved, that many fear’d, 
And rude men stoop’d, and cast a 
stone, 

As at some statue overthrown. 

Some said, a stolen bride was she, 
And that her lover from the sea 
Lay waiting for his chosen wife, 

And that a day of reckoning 
Lay waiting for this grizzled king. 

Some said that looking from her 
place 

A love would sometimes light her 
face, 

As if sweet recollections stirr’d 
Like far, sweet songs that come to us, 
So soft, so sweet, they are not heard, 
So far, so faint, they fill the air, 

A fragrance falling anywhere. 

So, wasting all her summer years 
That utter’d only through her tears, 
The seasons went, and still she stood 
Forever watching down the wood. 

Yet in her heart there held a strife 
With all this wasting of sweet life, 
That none who have not lived—and 
died— 

Held up the two hands crucified 
Between two ways—can understand. 

Men went and came, and still she 
stood 

In silence watching down the wood— 
Adown the wood beyond the land, 
Her hollow face upon her hand, 





222 


®fje l=>fnp in tfje SJestett 


Her black, abundant hair all down 
About her loose, ungather’d gown. 

And what her thought? her life 
unsaid? 

Was it of love? of hate? of him, 

The tall, dark Southerner? Her 
head 

Bow’d down. The day fell dim 
Upon her eyes. She bowed, she 
slept. 

She waken’d then, and waking wept. 
VIII 

The black-eyed bushy squirrels ran 
Like shadows scattered through the 
boughs; 

The gallant robin chirp’d his vows, 
The far-off pheasant thrumm’d his 
fan, 

A thousand blackbirds kept on wing 
In walnut-top, and it was Spring. 

Old Morgan sat his cabin door, 
And one sat watching as of yore, 

But why turn’d Morgan’s face as 
white 

As his white beard? A bird aflight, 
A squirrel peering through the trees, 
Saw some one silent steal away 
Like darkness from the face of day, 
Saw two black eyes look back, and 
these 

Saw her hand beckon through the 
trees. 

Ay! they have come, the sun- 
brown’d men, 

To beard old Morgan in his den. 

It matters little who they are, 


These silent men from isles afar; 

And truly no one cares or knows 
What be their merit or demand; 

It is enough for this rude land— 

At least, it is enough for those, 

The loud of tongue and rude of 
hand— 

To know that they are Morgan’s foes. 

Proud Morgan! More than tongue 
can tell 

He loved that woman watching there, 
That stood in her dark storm of hair, 
That stood and dream’d as in a spell. 
And look’d so fix’d and far aw^ay; 
And who that loveth woman well, 

Is wholly bad? be whom he may. 

IX 

Ay! we have seen these Southern 
men, 

These sun-browned men from island 
shore, 

In this same land, and long before. 
They do not seem so lithe as then, 
They do not look so tall, and they 
Seem not so many as of old. 

But that same resolute and bold 
Expression of unbridled will, 

That even Time must half obey, 

Is with them and is of them still. 

They do not counsel the decree 
Of court or council, where they drew 
Their breath, nor law nor order knew, 
Save but the strong hand of the 
strong; 

Where each stood up, avenged his 
wrong, 

Or sought his death all silently. 



®lje in Mje ©esert 


They watch along the wave and 
wood, 

They heed, but haste not. Their 
estate, 

Whate’er it be, can bide and wait, 

Be it open ill or hidden good. 

No law for them! For they have 
stood 

With steel, and writ their rights in 
blood; 

And now, whatever’t is they seek, 
Whatever be their dark demand, 
Why, they will make it, hand to hand, 
Take time and patience: Greek to 
Greek* 

X 

Like blown and snowy wintry pine, 
Old Morgan stoop’d his head and 
pass’d 

Within his cabin door. He cast 
A great arm out to men, made sign, 
Then turn’d to Sybal; stood beside 
A time, then turn’d and strode the 
floor, 

Stopp’d short, breathed sharp, threw 
wide the door, 

Then gazed beyond the murky tide, 
Past where the forky peaks divide. 

He took his beard in his right hand, 
Then slowly shook his grizzled head 
And trembled, but no word he said. 
His thought was something more than 
pain; 

Upon the seas, upon the land 
He knew he should not rest again. 

He turn’d to her; and then once 
more 


223 

Quick turn’d, and through the oaken 
door 

He sudden pointed to the west. 

His eye resumed its old command, 
The conversation of his hand 
It was enough; she knew the rest. 

He turn’d, he stoop’d, and 
smooth’d her hair, 

As if to smooth away the care 
From his great heart, with his left 
hand. 

His right hand hitch’d the pistol 
’round 

That dangled at his belt. The sound 
Of steel to him was melody 
More sweet than any song of sea. 

He touch’d his pistol, push’d his lips, 
Then tapp’d it with his finger tips, 
And toy’d with it as harper's hand 
Seeks out the chords when he is sad 
And purposeless. At last he had 
Resolved. In haste he touch’d her 
hair, 

Made sign she should arise—prepare 
For some long journey, then again 
He look’d awest toward the plain; 
Against the land of boundless space, 
The land of silences, the land 
Of shoreless deserts sown with sand, 
Where Desolation’s dwelling is; 

The land where, wondering, you say, 
What dried-up shoreless sea is this? 
Where, wandering, from day to day 
You say, To-morrow sure we come 
To rest in some cool resting place, 
And yet you journey on through 
space 

While seasons pass, and are struck 
dumb 

With marvel at the distances. 






224 


®{je m tfjc ©esert 


Yea, he would go. Go utterly 
Away, and from all living kind; 
Pierce through the distances, and find 
New lands. He had outlived his race. 
He stood like some eternal tree 
That tops remote Yosemite, 

And cannot fall. He turn’d his face 
Again and contemplated space. 

And then he raised his hand to vex 
His beard, stood still, and there fell 
down 

Great drops from some unfrequent 
spring, 

And streak’d his channeled cheeks 
sunbrown, 

And ran uncheck’d, as one who recks 
Nor joy, nor tears, nor anything. 

And then, his broad breast heaving 
deep, 

Like some dark sea in troubled sleep, 
Blown round with groaning ships and 
wrecks, 

He sudden roused himself, and stood 
With all the strength of his stern 
mood, 

Then call’d his men, and bade them 
go 

And bring black steeds with banner’d 
necks, 

And strong, like burly buffalo. 

XI 

The bronzen, stolid, still, black men 
Their black-maned horses silent drew 
Through solemn wood. One mid¬ 
night when 

The curl’d moon tipp’d her horn, and 
threw 


A black oak’s shadow slant across 
A low mound hid in leaves and moss, 
Old Morgan cautious came and drew 
From out the ground, as from a grave, 
Great bags, all copper-bound and old, 
And fill’d, men say, with pirates’ gold. 
And then they, silent as a dream, 

In long black shadow cross’d the 
stream. 

XII 

And all was life at mom, but one, 
The tall old sea-king, grim and gray, 
Look’d back to where his cabin lay, 
And seem’d to hesitate. He rose 
At last, as from his dream’s repose, 
From rest that counterfeited rest, 
And set his blown beard to the west; 
And rode against the setting sun, 

Far up the levels vast and dun. 

His steeds were steady, strong and 
fleet, 

The best in all the wide west land, 
Their manes were in the air, their feet 
Seem’d scarce to touch the flying 
sand. 

They rode like men gone mad, they 
fled 

All day and many days they ran, 

And in the rear a gray old man 
Kept watch, and ever turn’d his head 
Half eager and half angry, back 
Along their dusty desert track. 

And she look’d back, but no man 
spoke, 

They rode, they swallowed up the 
plain; 




®t)f i£>fjip tu tfje ©egert 


225 


The sun sank low, he look’d again, 
With lifted hand and shaded eyes. 
Then far, afar, he saw uprise, 

As if from giant’s stride or stroke, 
Dun dust, like puffs of battle-smoke. 

He turn’d, his left hand clutched 
the rein, 

He struck hard west his high right 
hand, 

His limbs were like the limbs of oak; 
All knew too well the man’s com¬ 
mand. 

Or* t>n they spurred, they plunged 
again, 

And one look’d back, but no man 
spoke. 

They climb’d the rock-built breasts 
of earth, 

The Titan-fronted, blowy steeps 
That cradled Time. Where freedom 
keeps 

Her flag of bright, blown stars un¬ 
furl’d, 

They climbed and climbed. They 
saw the birth 

Of sudden dawn upon the world; 
Again they gazed; they saw the face 
Of God, and named it boundless 
space. 

And they descended and did roam 
Through levell’d distances set round 
By room. They saw the Silences 
Move by and beckon; saw the forms, 
The very beards, of burly storms, 
And heard them talk like sounding 
seas. 

On unnamed heights, bleak-blown 
and brown, 


And torn-like battlements of Mars, 
They saw the darknesses come down, 
Like curtains loosen’d from the dome 
Of God’s cathedral, built of stars. 

They pitch’d the tent where rivers 
run 

All foaming to the west, and rush 
As if to drown the falling sun. 

They saw the snowy mountains roll’d, 
And heaved along the nameless lands 
Like mighty billows; saw the gold 
Of awful sunsets; felt the hush 
Of heaven when the day sat down, 
And drew about his mantle brown, 
And hid his face in dusky hands. 

The long and lonesome nights! the 
tent 

That nestled soft in sweep of grass, 
The hills against the firmament 
Where scarce the moving moon 
could pass; 

The cautious camp, the smother’d 
light, 

The silent sentinel at night! 

The wild beasts howling from the 
hill; 

The savage prowling swift and still, 
And bended as a bow is bent. 

The arrow sent; the arrow spent 
And buried in its bloody place; 

The dead man lying on his face! 

The clouds of dust, their cloud by 
day; 

Their pillar of unfailing fire 
The far North Star. And high, and 
higher, 


15 




226 


®ije is>fjip in tfje ©efiert 


They climb’d so high it seemed 
eftsoon 

That they must face the falling moon, 
That like some flame-lit ruin lay 
High built before their weary way. 

They learn’d to read the sign of 
storms, 

The moon’s wide circles, sunset bars, 
And storm-provoking blood and 
flame; 

And, like the Chaldean shepherds, 
came 

At night to name the moving stars. 
In heaven’s face they pictured forms 
Of beasts, of fishes of the sea. 

They watch’d the Great Bear wearily 
Rise up and drag his clinking chain 
Of stars around the starry main. 

XIII 

And why did these worn, sun-burnt 
men 

Let Morgan gain the plain, and then 
Pursue him ever where he fled? 

Some say their leader sought but her; 
Unlike each swarthy follower. 

Some say they sought his gold alone, 
And fear’d to make their quarrel 
known 

Lest it should keep its secret bed; 
Some say they thought to best prevail 
And conquer with united hands 
Alone upon the lonesome sands; 
Some say they had as much to dread; 
Some say—but I must tell my tale. 

And still old Morgan sought the 
west; 

The sea, the utmost sea, and rest. 


He climb’d, descended, climb’d again, 
Until pursuit seemed all in vain; 
Until they left him all alone, 

As unpursued and as unknown, 

As some lost ship upon the main. 

O there was grandeur in his air, 

An old-time splendor in his eye, 
When he had climb’d at last the high 
And rock-built bastions of the plain, 
Thrown back his beard and blown 
white hair, 

And halting turn’d to look again. 

Dismounting in his lofty place, 

He look’d far down the fading plain 
For his pursuers, but in vain. 

Yea, he was glad. Across his face 
A careless smile was seen to play, 
The first for many a stormy day. 

He turn’d to Sybal, dark, yet fair 
As some sad twilight; touched her 
hair, 

Stoop’d low, and kiss’d her gently 
there, 

Then silent held her to his breast; 
Then waved command to his black 
men, 

Look’d east, then mounted slow and 
then 

Led leisurely against the west. 

And why should he who dared to 
die, 

Who more than once with hissing 
breath 

Had set his teeth and pray’d for 

death? 

Why fled these men, or wherefore fly 
Before them now? why not defy? 




£H)tp tn tfje Zlksett 


227 


His midnight men were strong and 
true, 

And not unused to strife, and knew 
The masonry of steel right well, 

And all such signs that lead to hell. 

It might have been his youth had 
wrought 

Some wrongs his years would now 
repair, 

That made him fly and still forbear; 
It might have been he only sought 
To lead them to some fatal snare, 
And let them die by piecemeal there. 

I only know it was not fear 
Of any man or any thing 
That death in any shape might bring. 
It might have been some lofty sense 
Of his own truth and innocence, 

And virtues lofty as severe— 

Nay, nay! what room for reasons 
here? 

And now they pierced a fringe of 
trees 

That bound a mountain's brow like 
bay. 

Sweet through the fragrant boughs a 
breeze 

Blew salt-flood freshness. Far away, 
From mountain brow to desert base 
Lay chaos, space; unbounded space. 

The black men cried, “The sea!” 
They bow’d 

Black, woolly heads in hard black 
hands. 

They wept for joy. They laugh’d, 
they broke 

The silence of an age, and spoke 


Of rest at last; and, grouped in bands, 
They threw their long black arms 
about 

Each other’s necks, and laugh’d 
aloud, 

Then wept again with laugh and 
shout. 

Yet Morgan spake no word, but led 
His band with oft-averted head 
Right through the cooling trees, till 
he 

Stood out upon the lofty brow 
And mighty mountain wall. And 
now 

The men who shouted, “ Lo, the sea! ” 
Rode in the sun; sad, silently, 

Rode in the sun, and look’d below. 

They look’d but once, then look’d 
away, 

Then look’d each other in the face. 
They could not lift their brows, nor 
say, 

But held their heads, nor spake, for 
lo! 

Nor sea, nor voice of sea, nor breath 
Of sea, but only sand and death, 

The dread mirage, the fiend of space! 

XIV 

Old Morgan eyed his men, look’d 
back 

Against the groves of tamarack, 

Then tapp’d his stirrup foot, and 
stray’d 

His broad left hand along the mane 
Of his strong steed, and careless 
play’d 

His fingers through the silken skein. 







228 


®jjc £H)tp in ttjc Bescrt 


And then he spurr’d him to her 
side, 

And reach’d his hand and leaning 
wide, 

He smiling push’d her falling hair 
Back from her brow, and kiss’d her 
there. 

Yea, touch’d her softly, as if she 
Had been some priceless, tender 
flower; 

Yet touched her as one taking leave 
Of his one love in lofty tower 
Before descending to the sea 
Of battle on his battle eve. 

A distant shout! quick oaths! 
alarms! 

The black men start, turn suddenly, 
Stand in the stirrup, clutch their 
arms, 

And bare bright arms all instantly. 
But he, he slowly turns, and he 
Looks all his full soul in her face. 

He does not shout, he does not say, 
But sits serenely in his place 
A time, then slowly turns, looks back 
Between the trim-boughed tamarack, 
And up the winding mountain way, 
To where the long, strong grasses lay, 
And there they came, hot on his 
track! 

He raised his glass in his two hands, 
Then in his left hand let it fall, 

Then seem’d to count his fingers o’er, 
Then reached his glass, waved his 
commands, 

Then tapped his stirrup as before, 
Stood in the stirrup stern and tall, 
Then ran a hand along the mane 
Half-nervous like, and that was all. 


And then he turn’d and smiled 
half sad, 

Half desperate, then hitch’d his steel; 
Then all his stormy presence had, 

As if he kept once more his keel, 

On pirate seas where breakers reel. 

At last he tossed his iron hand 
Above the deep, steep desert space, 
Above the burning seas of sand, 

And look’d his black men in the face. 
They spake not, nor look’d back 
again, 

They struck the heel, they clutched 
the rein, 

And down the darkling plunging steep 
They dropp’d into the dried-up deep. 

Below! It seem’d a league below, 
The black men rode, and she rode 
well, 

Against the gleaming, sheening haze 
That shone like some vast sea 
ablaze— 

That seem’d to gleam, to glint, to 
glow, 

As if it mark’d the shores of hell. 

Then Morgan reined alone, look’d 
back 

From off the high wall wdiere he stood, 
And watch’d his fierce approaching 
foe. 

He saw him creep along his track, 
Saw him descending from the wood. 
And smiled to see how worn and slow. 

And Morgan heard his oath and 
shout, . 

And Morgan turned his head once 
more, 



229 


TElje £§>i)tp in tlje ©esert 


And wheel’d his stout steed short 
about, 

Then seem’d to count their numbers 
o’er. 

And then his right hand touch’d his 
steel, 

And then he tapp’d his iron heel, 
And seemed to fight with thought. 
At last 

As if the final die was cast, 

And cast as carelessly as one 
Would toss a white coin in the sun, 
He touch’d his rein once more, and 
then 

His right hand laid with idle heed 
Along the toss’d mane of his steed. 

Pursuer and pursued! who knows 
The why he left the breezy pine, 

The fragrant tamarack and vine, 

Red rose and precious yellow rose! 
Nay Vasques held the vantage ground 
Above him by the wooded steep, 

And right nor left no passage lay, 
And there was left him but that 
way,— 

The way through blood, or to the 
deep 

And lonesome deserts far profound, 
That knew not sight of man, nor 
sound. 

Hot Vasques reined upon the rim, 
High, bold, and fierce with crag and 
spire. 

He saw a far gray eagle swim, 

He saw a black hawk wheel, retire, 
And shun that desert’s burning 
breath 

As shunning something more than 
death. 


Ah, then he paused, turn’d, shook 
his head. 

"And shall we turn aside,” he said, 
"Or dare this Death?” The men 
stood still 

As leaning on his sterner will. 

And then he stopp’d and turn’d again, 
And held his broad hand to his brow, 
And look’d intent and eagerly. 

The far white levels of the plain 
Flash’d back like billows. Even now 
He thought he saw rise up ’mid sea, 
’Mid space, ’mid wastes, ’mid noth¬ 
ingness 

A ship becalm'd as in distress. 

The dim sign pass’d as suddenly, 
And then his eager eyes grew dazed,— 
He brought his two hands to his face. 
Again he raised his head, and gazed 
With flashing eyes and visage fierce 
Far out, and resolute to pierce 
The far, far, faint receding reach 
Of space and touch its farther beach. 
He saw but space, unbounded space; 
Eternal space and nothingness. 

Then all wax’d anger’d as they 
gazed 

Far out upon the shoreless land, 

And clench’d their doubled hands and 
raised 

Their long bare arms, but utter’d not. 
At last one rode from out the band, 
And raised his arm, push’d back his 
sleeve, 

Push’d bare his arm, rode up and 
down, 

With hat push’d back. Then flush’d 
and hot 

He shot sharp oaths like cannon shot. 




Wje in tfje BeSert 


230 

Then Vasques was resolved; his 
form 

Seem’d like a pine blown rampt with 
storm. 

He clutch’d his rein, drove spur, and 
then 

Turn’d sharp and savage to his men, 
And then led boldly down the way 
To night that knows not night or day. 

XV 

How broken plunged the steep 
descent! 

How barren! Desolate, and rent 
By earthquake’s shock, the land lay 
dead, 

With dust and ashes on its head. 

’Twas as some old world over¬ 
thrown 

Where Theseus fought and Sappho 
dream’d 

In aeons ere they touch’d this land, 
And found their proud souls foot and 
hand 

Bound to the flesh and stung w T ith 
pain. 

An ugly skeleton it seem’d 
Of its old self. The fiery rain 
Of red volcanoes here had sowm 
The desolation of the plain. 

Ay, vanquish’d quite and overthrown, 
And torn with thunder-stroke, and 
strown 

With cinders, lo! the dead earth lay 
As waiting for the judgment day. 
Why, tamer men had turn’d and 
said, 

On seeing this, with start and dread, 


And whisper’d each with gather’d 
breath, 

“We come on the abode of death.” 

They wound below a savage bluff 
That lifted, from its sea-mark’d base, 
Great walls with characters cut rough 
And deep by some long-perish’d race; 
And great, strange beasts unnamed, 
unknown, 

Stood hewn and limn’d upon the 
stone. 

A mournful land as land can be 
Beneath their feet in ashes lay, 
Beside that dread and dried-up sea; 
A city older than that gray 
And sand sown tower builded when 
Confusion cursed the tongues of men. 

Beneath, before, a city lay 
That in her majesty had shamed 
The wolf-nursed conqueror of old; 
Below, before, and far away, 

There reach’d the white arm of a bay, 
A broad bay shrunk to sand and 
stone, 

Where ships had rode and breakers 
roll’d 

When Babylon was yet unnamed, 
And Nimrod’s hunting-fields un¬ 
known. 

Where sceptered kings had sat at 
feast, 

Some serpents slid from out the grass 
That grew in tufts by shatter’d stone, 
Then hid beneath some broken mass 
That time had eaten as a bone 
Is eaten by some savage beast. 


/ 



®f)e §s >\jip tn tfje ®e£ert 


231 


A dull-eyed rattlesnake that lay 
All loathsome, yellow-skinn’d, and 
slept 

Coil’d tight as pine-knot, in the sun, 
With flat head through the center 
run, 

Struck blindly back, then rattling 
crept 

Flat-bellied down the dusty 
way ... 

'Twas all the dead land had to say. 

Two pink-eyed hawks, wide-wing'd 
and gray, 

Scream’d savagely, and, circling 
high, 

And screaming still in mad dismay, 
Grew dim and died against the 
sky . . . 

’Twas all the heavens had to say. 

Some low-built junipers at last, 
The last that o’er the desert look’d, 
Where dumb owls sat with bent bills 
hook’d 

Beneath their wings awaiting night, 
Rose up, then faded from the sight. 

What dim ghosts hover on this rim: 
What stately-manner’d shadows 
swim 

Along these gleaming wastes of sands 
.And shoreless limits of dead lands? 

Dread Azteckee! Dead Azteckee! 
White place of ghosts, give up thy 
dead; 

Give back to Time thy buried hosts 1 
The new world’s tawny Ishmaelite, 
The roving tent-born Shoshonee, 


Hath shunned thy shores of death, at 
night 

Because thou art so white, so dread, 
Because thou art so ghostly white, 
And named thy shores "the place of 
ghosts." 

Thy white, uncertain sands are 
white 

With bones of thy unburied dead, 
That will not perish from the sight. 
They drown, but perish not—ah me! 
What dread unsightly sights are 
spread 

Along this lonesome, dried-up sea? 

Old, hoar, and dried-up sea! so old 
So strown with wealth, so sown with 
gold! 

Yea, thou art old and hoary white 
With time, and ruin of all things; 
And on thy lonesome borders Night 
Sits brooding as with wounded wings. 

The winds that toss’d thy waves 
and blew 

Across thy breast the blowing sail, 
And cheer’d the hearts of cheering 
crew 

From farther seas, no more prevail. 
Thy white-wall’d cities all lie prone. 
With but a pyramid, a stone, 

Set head and foot in sands to tell 
The thirsting stranger where they 
fell. 

The patient ox that bended low 
His neck, and drew slow up and down 
Thy thousand freights through rock- 
built town 

Is now the free-born buffalo. 





232 


®f)e in 

No longer of the timid fold, 

The mountain ram leaps free and 
bold 

His high-built summit, and looks 
down 

From battlements of buried town. 

Thine ancient steeds know not the 
rein; 

They lord the land; they come, they 
go 

At will; they laugh at man; they blow 
A cloud of black steeds o’er the plain. 
The winds, the waves, have drawn 
away— 

The very wild man dreads to stay. 

XVI 

Away! upon the sandy seas 
The gleaming, burning, boundless 
plain; 

How solemn-like, how still, as when 
That mighty minded Genoese 
Drew three slim ships and led his men 
From land they might not meet 
again. 

The black men rode in front by 
two, 

The fair one follow’d close, and kept 
Her face held down as if she wept; 

But Morgan kept the rear, and threw 
His flowing, swaying beard still back 
In watch along their lonesome track. 

The weary Day fell down to rest, 

A star upon his mantled breast, 

Ere scarce the sun fell out of space, 
And Venus glimmer’d in his place. 

Yea, all the stars shone just as fair, 


tfre SJesert 

And constellations kept their round, 
And look’d from out the great pro¬ 
found, 

And march’d, and countermarch’d, 
and shone 

Upon that desolation there— 

Why, just the same as if proud man 
Strode up and down array’d in gold 
And purple as in days of old, 

And reckon’d all of his own plan, 

Or made at least for man alone. 

Yet on push’d Morgan silently, 
And straight as strong ship on a sea; 
And ever as he rode there lay— 

To right, to left, and in his way, 
Strange objects looming in the dark, 
Some like tall mast, or ark, or bark. 

And things half-hidden in the sand 
Lay down before them where they 
pass’d— 

A broken beam, half-buried mast, 

A spar or bar, such as might be 
Blown crosswise, tumbled on the 
strand 

Of some sail-crowded, stormy sea. 

All night by moon, by morning 
star, 

The still, black men still kept their 
way; 

All night till morn, till burning day 
Hard Vasques follow’d fast and far. 

The sun is high, the sands are hot 
To touch, and all the tawny plain 
Sinks white and open as they tread 
And trudge, with half-averted head, 
As if to swallow them in sand. 

They look, as men look back to land 



Wi )c gHjip tn tfje 23e£ert 


233 


When standing out to stormy sea, 
But still keep pace and murmur not; 
Keep stern and still as destiny. 

It was a sight! A slim dog slid 
White-mouth’d and still along the 
sand, 

The pleading picture of distress. 

He stopp’d, leap’d up to lick a hand, 
A hard, black hand that sudden chid 
Him back, and check’d his tender¬ 
ness. 

Then when the black man turn’d his 
head, 

His poor, mute friend had fallen dead. 

The very air hung white with heat, 
And white, and fair, and far away 
A lifted, shining snow-shaft lay 
As if to mock their mad retreat. 

The white, salt sands beneath their 
feet 

Did make the black men loom as 
grand, 

From out the lifting, heaving heat, 
As they rode sternly on and on, 

As any bronze men in the land 
That sit their statue steeds upon. 

The men were silent as men dead. 
The sun hung centered overhead, 

Nor seem’d to move. It molten 
hung 

Like some great central burner swung 
From lofty beams with golden bars 
In sacristy set round with stars. 

Why, flame could hardly be more 
hot; 

Yet on the mad pursuer came 
Across the gleaming, yielding ground, 


Right on, as if he fed on flame. 

Right on until the mid-day found 
The man within a pistol-shot. 

He hail’d, but Morgan answered 
not; 

He hail’d, then came a feeble shot, 
And strangely, in that vastness there, 
It seem’d to scarcely fret the air, 

But fell down harmless anywhere. 

He fiercely hail’d; and then there 
fell 

A horse. And then a man fell down, 
And in the sea-sand seem’d to drown. 
Then Vasques cursed, but scarce 
could tell 

The sound of his own voice, and all 
In mad confusion seem’d to fall. 

Yet on pushed Morgan, silent on, 
And as he rode, he lean’d and drew 
From his catenas gold, and threw 
The bright coins in the glaring sun. 
But Vasques did not heed a whit, 

He scarcely deign’d to scowl at it. 

Again lean’d Morgan. He uprose, 
And held a high hand to his foes, 
And held two goblets up, and one 
Did shine as if itself a sun. 

Then leaning backward from his 
place, 

He hurl’d them in his foeman’s face; 
Then drew again, and so kept on, 
Till goblets, gold, and all were gone. 

Yea, strew’d all out upon the sands 
As men upon a frosty morn, 

In Mississippi’s fertile lands, 

Hurl out great yellow ears of corn, 

To hungry swine with hurried hands. 



234 


®lje £M)tp in tfjc Uesert 


Yet still hot Vasques urges on, 
With flashing eye and flushing cheek. 
What would he have? what does he 
seek? 

He does not heed the gold a whit, 

He does not deign to look at it; 

But now his gleaming steel is drawn, 
And now he leans, would hail again,— 
He opes his swollen lips in vain. 

But look you! See! A lifted 
hand, 

And Vasques beckons his command. 
He cannot speak, he leans, and he 
Bends low upon his saddle-bow. 

And now his blade drops to his knee, 
And now he falters, now comes on, 
And now his head is bended low; 

And now his rein, his steel, is gone; 
Now faint as any child is he; 

And now his steed sinks to the knee. 

The sun hung molten in mid-space, 
Like some great star fix’d in its place. 
From out the gleaming spaces rose 
A sheen of gossamer and danced, 

As Morgan slow and still advanced 
Before his far-receding foes. 

Right on, and on, the still, black line 
Drove straight through gleaming 
sand and shine, 

By spar and beam and mast, and 
stray 

And waif of sea and cast-away. 

The far peaks faded from their 
sight, 

The mountain walls fell down like 
night, 

And nothing now was to be seen 
Except the dim sun hung in sheen / 


Of gory garments all blood-red,— 
The hell beneath, the hell o'erhead. 

A black man tumbled from his 
steed. 

He clutch’d in death the moving 
sands, 

He caught the hot earth in his hands, 
He gripp’d it, held it hard and 
grim— 

The great, sad mother did not heed 
His hold, but pass’d right on from 
him. 

XVII 

The sun seem'd broken loose at 
last. 

And settled slowly to the west, 
Half-hidden as he fell to rest, 

Yet, like the flying Parthian, cast 
His keenest arrows as he pass’d. 

On, on, the black men slowly drew 
Their length like some great serpent 
through 

The sands, and left a hollow’d groove: 
They moved, they scarcely seem’d to 
move. 

How patient in their muffled tread! 
How like the dead march of the dead! 

At last the slow, black line was 
check’d, 

An instant only; now again 
It moved, it falter’d now, and now 
It settled in its sandy bed, 

And steeds stood rooted to the plain. 
Then all stood still, and men some¬ 
how 

Look’d down and with averted head, 



®ije g>f)ip in tfje Besert 


235 


Look’d down, nor dared look up, nor 
reck’d 

Of anything, of ill or good, 

But bow’d and stricken still, they 
stood. 

Like some brave band that dared 
the fierce 

And bristled steel of gather’d host, 
These daring men had dared to pierce 
This awful vastness, dead and gray. 
And now at last brought well at bay 
They stood,—but each stood to his 
post. 

Then one dismounted, waved a 
hand, 

’Twas Morgan’s stern and still com¬ 
mand. 

There fell a clank, like loosen’d chain, 
As men dismounting loosed the rein. 

Then every steed stood loosed and 
free; 

And some stepp’d slow and mute 
aside, 

And some sank to the sands and died; 
And some stood still as shadows be. 

Old Morgan turn’d and raised his 
hand 

And laid it level with his eyes, 

And looked far back along the land. 
He saw a dark dust still uprise, 

Still surely tend to where he lay. 

He did not curse, he did not say— 

He did not even look surprise. 

Nay, he was over-gentle now; 

He wiped a time his Titan brow, 

Then sought dark Sybal in her place, 


Put out his arms, put down his face 
And look’d in hers. She reach’d her 
hands, 

She lean’d, she fell upon his breast; 
He reach’d his arms around; she lay 
As lies a bird in leafy nest. 

And he look’d out across the sands 
And bearing her, he strode away. 

Some black men settled down to 
rest, 

But none made murmur or request. 
The dead were dead, and that were 
best; 

The living, leaning, follow’d him, 

A long dark line, a shadow dim. 

The day through high mid-heaven 
rode 

Across the sky, the dim, red day; 
And on, the war-like day-god strode 
With shoulder’d shield away, away. 
The savage, warlike day bent low, 

As reapers bend in gathering grain, 
As archer bending bends yew bow, 
And flush’d and fretted as in pain. 

Then down his shoulder slid his 
shield, 

So huge, so awful, so blood-red 
And batter’d as from battle-field: 

It settled, sunk to his left hand, 

Sunk down and down, it touch’d the 
sand; 

Then day along the land lay dead, 
Without one candle, foot or head. 

And now the moon wheel’d white 
and vast, 

A round, unbroken, marbled moon, 





236 ®f)c in tfje 23e£crt 


And touch’d the far, bright buttes of 
snow, 

Then climb’d their shoulders over 
soon; 

And there she seem’d to sit at last, 
To hang, to hover there, to grow, 
Grow grander than vast peaks of snow. 

She sat the battlements of time; 
She shone in mail of frost and rime 
A time, and then rose up and stood 
In heaven in sad widowhood. 

The faded moon fell wearily, 

And then the sun right suddenly 
Rose up full arm’d, and rushing came 
Across the land like flood of flame. 

And now it seemed that hills up¬ 
rose, 

High push’d against the arching 
skies, 

As if to meet the sudden sun— 

Rose sharp from out the sultry dun, 
And seem’d to hold the free repose 
Of lands where flow’ry summits rise, 
In unfenced fields of Paradise. 

The black men look’d up from the 
sands 

Against the dim, uncertain skies, 

As men that disbelieved their eyes, 
And would have laugh’d; they wept 
instead, 

With shoulders heaved, with bowing 
head 

Hid down between the two black 
hands. 

They stood and gazed. Lo! like 
the call 


Of spring-time promises, the trees 
Lean’d from their lifted mountain 
wall, 

And stood clear cut against the skies, 
As if they grew in pistol-shot; 

Yet all the mountains answer’d not 
And yet there came no cooling breeze, 
Nor soothing sense of wind-wet trees. 

At last old Morgan, looking 
through 

His shaded fingers, let them go, 

And let his load fall down as dead. 
He groan’d, he clutch’d his beard of 
snow 

As was his wont, then bowing low, 
Took up his life, and moaning said, 

“Lord Christ! ’tis the mirage, and we 
Stand blinded in a burning sea.” 

XVIII 

Again they move, but where or how 
It recks them little, nothing now. 

Yet Morgan leads them as before, 
But totters now; he bends, and he 
Is like a broken ship a-sea,— 

A ship that knows not any shore, 

Nor rudder, nor shall anchor more. 

Some leaning shadows crooning 
crept 

Through desolation, crown’d in dust. 
And had the mad pursuer kept 
His path, and cherish’d his pursuit? 
There lay no choice. Advance, he 
must: 

Advance, and eat his ashen fruit. 

Again the still moon rose and stood 
Above the dim, dark belt of wood, 




®fjc £H)tp tn ttje iDcScrl 


237 


Above the buttes, above the snow, 
And bent a sad, sweet face below. 

She reach’d along the level plain 
Her long, white fingers. Then again 
She reach’d, she touch’d the snowy 
sands. 

Then reach’d far out until she 
touch’d 

A heap that lay with doubled hands, 
Reach’d from its sable self, and 
clutch’d 

With patient death. O tenderly 
That black, that dead and hollow 
face 

Was kiss’d that night. . . . What 
if I say 

The long, white moonbeams reach¬ 
ing there, 

Caressing idle hands of clay, 

And resting on the wrinkled hair 
And great lips push’d in sullen pout, 
Were God’s own fingers reaching out 
From heaven to that lonesome place? 

XIX 

By waif and stray and cast-away, 
Such as are seen in seas withdrawn, 
Old Morgan led in silence on; 

And sometimes lifting up his head, 
To guide his footsteps as he led, 

He deem’d he saw a great ship lay 
Her keel along the sea-wash’d sand, 
As with her captain’s old command. 

The stars were seal’d; and then a 
haze 

Of gossamer fill’d all the west, 

So like in Indian summer days, 

And veil’d all things. And then the 
moon 


Grew pale and faint, and far. She 
died, 

And now nor star nor any sign 
Fell out of heaven. Oversoon 
A black man fell. Then at his side 
Some one sat down to watch, to rest— 
To rest, to watch, or what you will, 
The man sits resting, watching still. 

XX 

The day glared through the eastern 
rim 

Of rocky peaks, as prison bars, 

With light as dim as distant stars. 
The sultry sunbeams filter’d down 
Through misty phantoms weird and 
dim, 

Through shifting shapes bat-wing’d 
and brown. 

Like some vast ruin wrapp’d in 
flame 

The sun fell down before them now. 
Behind them wheel’d white peaks of 
snow, 

As they proceeded. Gray and grim 
And awful objects went and came 
Before them all. They pierced at 
last 

The desert’s middle depths, and lo! 
There loom’d from out the desert 
vast 

A lonely ship, well-built and trim, 
And perfect all in hull and mast. 

No storm had stain’d it any whit, 
No seasons set their teeth in it. 

Her masts were white as ghosts, and 
tall; 

Her decks were as of yesterday. 



238 


®f>c in tfje Besert 


The rains, the elements, and all 
The moving things that bring decay 
By fair green lands or fairer seas, 
Had touch’d not here for centuries. 
Lo! date had lost all reckoning, 

And time had long forgotten all 
In this lost land, and no new thing 
Or old could anywise befall, 

For Time went by the other way. 

What dreams of gold or conquest 
drew 

The oak-built sea-king to these seas, 
Ere earth, old earth, unsatisfied, 

Rose up and shook man in disgust 
From off her wearied breast, and 
threw 

His high-built cities down, and dried 
These unnamed ship-sown seas to 
dust? 

Who trod these decks? What cap¬ 
tain knew 

The straits that led to lands like 
these? 

Blew south-sea breeze or north-sea 
breeze? 

What spiced-winds whistled through 
this sail? 

What banners stream’d above these 
seas? 

And what strange seaman answer’d 
back 

To other sea-king’s beck and hail, 
That blew across his foamy track? 

Sought Jason here the golden 
fleece? 

Came Trojan ship or ships of Greece?, 
Came decks dark-mann’d from sul¬ 
try Ind, 


Woo’d here by spacious wooing 
wind ? 

So like a grand, sweet woman, when 
A great love moves her soul to men? 

Came here strong ships of Solomon 
In quest of Ophir by Cathay? . . . 
Sit down and dream of seas with¬ 
drawn, 

And every sea-breath drawn away. 
Sit down, sit down! What is the 
good 

That we go on still fashioning 
Great iron ships or walls of wood, 
High masts of oak, or anything? 

Lo! all things moving must go by. 
The seas lie dead. Behold, this land 
Sits desolate in dust beside 
His snow-white, seamless shroud of 
sand; 

The very clouds have wept and 
died, 

And only God is in the sky. 

XXI 

The sands lay heaved, as heaved by 
waves, 

As fashioned in a thousand graves: 
And wrecks of storm blown here and 
there, 

And dead men scatter’d every¬ 
where; 

And strangely clad they seem’d to 
be 

Just as they sank in that dread sea. 

The mermaid with her golden hair 
Had clung about a wreck’s beam 
there, 



Cfje in tbe Besert 


239 


And sung her song of sweet despair 
The time she saw the seas with¬ 
drawn 

And all her pride and glory gone: 
Had sung her melancholy dirge 
Above the last receding surge, 

And, looking down the rippled tide, 
Had sung, and with her song had 
died. 

The monsters of the sea lay bound 
In strange contortions. Coil’d 
around 

A mast half heaved above the sand 
The great sea-serpent’s folds were 

found, 

As solid as ship’s iron band; 

And basking in the burning sun 
There rose the great whale’s 
skeleton. 

A thousand sea things stretch’d 
across 

Their weary and bewilder’d way: 
Great unnamed monsters wrinkled 
lay 

With sunken eyes and shrunken 
form. 

The strong sea-horse that rode the 
storm 

With mane as light and white as 
floss, 

Lay tangled in his mane of moss. 

And anchor, hull, and cast-away, 
And all things that the miser deep 
Doth in his darkling locker keep, 

To right and left around them lay. 
Yea, golden coin and golden cup, 

And golden cruse, and golden plate, 
And all that great seas swallow up, 


Right in their dreadful pathway lay. 
The hoary sea made white with 
time, 

And wrinkled cross with many a 
crime, 

With all his treasured thefts lay 
there, 

His sins, his very soul laid bare, 

As if it were the Judgment Day. 

XXII 

And now the tawny night fell 
soon, 

And there was neither star nor 
moon; 

And yet it seem’d it was not night. 
There fell a phosphorescent light, 
There rose from white sands and dead 
men 

A soft light, white and strange as 
when 

The Spirit of Jehovah moved 
Upon the water’s conscious face, 

And made it His abiding place. 

Remote, around the lonesome 
ship, 

Old Morgan moved, but knew it 
not, 

For neither star nor moon fell 
down. . . . 

I trow that was a lonesome spot 
He found, where boat and ship did 
dip 

In sands like some half-sunken 
town. 

At last before the leader lay 
A form that in the night did seem 
A slain Goliath. As in a dream, 




240 


®Ije in tfje Sesed 


He drew aside in his slow pace, 

And look’d. He saw a sable face) 

A friend that fell that very day, 
Thrown straight across his wearied 
way. 

He falter’d now. His iron heart, 
That never yet refused its part, 
Began to fail him; and his strength 
Shook at his knees, as shakes the 
wind 

A shatter’d ship. His shatter’d 
mind 

Ranged up and down the land. At 
length 

He turn’d, as ships turn, tempest 
toss’d, 

For now he knew that he was lost! 
He sought in vain the moon, the 
stars, 

In vain the battle-star of Mars. 

Again he moved. And now again 
He paused, he peer’d along the 
plain, 

Another form before him lay. 

He stood, and statue-white he stood, 
He trembled like a stormy wood,— 

It was a foeman brawn and gray. 

He lifted up his head again, 

Again he search’d the great pro¬ 
found 

For moon, for star, but sought in 
vain. 

He kept his circle round and round 
The great ship lifting from the sand, 
And pointing heavenward like a 
hand. 

And still he crept along the plain, 
Yet where his foeman dead again 


Lay in his way he moved around, 
And soft as if on sacred ground, 

And did not touch him anywhere. 

It might have been he had a dread, 
In his half-crazed and fever’d brain. 
His fallen foe might rise again 
If he should dare to touch him there. 

He circled round the lonesome 
ship 

Like some wild beast within a wall, 
That keeps his paces round and 
round. 

The very stillness had a sound; 

He saw strange somethings rise and 
dip; 

He felt the weirdness like a pall 
Come down and cover him. It 
seem’d 

To take a form, take many forms, 

To talk to him, to reach out arms; 
Yet on he kept, and silent kept, 

And as he lead he lean’d and slept, 
And as he slept he talk’d and 
dream’d. 

Two shadows follow’d, stopp’d, 
and stood 

Bewilder’d, wander’d back again, 
Came on and then fell to the sand, 
And sinking died. Then other men 
Did wag their woolly heads and 
laugh, 

’Then bend their necks and seem to 
quaff 

Of cooling waves that careless flow 
Where woods and long, strong grasses 
grow. 

Yet on. wound Morgan, leaning 
low, 



®f)e £§>fnp in ityt Bcsert 


241 


With her upon his breast, and slow 
As hand upon a dial plate. 

He did not turn his course or quail, 
He did not falter, did not fail, 

Turn right or left or hesitate. 

Some far-off sounds had lost their 
way, 

And seem’d to call to him and pray 
For help, as if they were affright. 

It was not day, it seem’d not night, 
But that dim land that lies between 
The mournful, faithful face of night, 
And loud and gold-bedazzled day; 

A night that was not felt but seen. 

There seem’d not now the ghost of 
sound, 

He stepp’d as soft as step the dead; 
Yet on he lead in solemn tread, 
Bewilder’d, blinded, round and 
round, 

About the great black ship that rose 
Tall-masted as that ship that blows 
Her ghost below lost Panama,— 

The tallest mast man ever saw. 

Two leaning shadows follow’d 
him: 

Their eyes were red, their teeth shone 
white, 

Their limbs did lift as shadows 
swim. 

Then one went left and one went 
right, 

And in the night pass’d out of 
sight; 

Pass’d through the portals black, 
unknown, 

And Morgan totter’d on alone. 

16 


And why he still survived the 
rest, 

Why still he had the strength to stir, 
Why still he stood like gnarled oak 
That buffets storm and tempest 
stroke, 

One cannot say, save but for her, 
That helpless being on his breast. 

She did not speak, she did not 
stir; 

In rippled currents over her, 

Her black, abundant hair pour’d 
down 

Like mantle or some sable gown. 
That sad, sweet dreamer; she who 
knew 

Not anything of earth at all. 

Nor cared to know its bane or bliss; 
That dove that did not touch the 
land, 

That knew, yet did not understand. 
And this may be because she drew 
Her all of life right from the hand 
Of God, and did not choose to learn 
The things that make up man’s 
concern. 

Ah! there be souls none under¬ 
stand ; 

Like clouds, they cannot touch the 
land. 

Unanchored ships, they blow and 
blow, 

Sail to and fro, and then go dow T n 
In unknown seas that none shall 
know, 

Without one ripple of renown. 

Call these not fools; the test of 
worth 




242 


S’tHP in tfje ©eScct 


Is not the hold you have of earth. 
Ay, there be gentlest souls sea- 
blown 

That know not any harbor known. 
Now it may be the reason is, 

They touch on fairer shores than this. 

At last he touch’d a fallen group, 
Dead fellows tumbled in the sands, 
Dead foemen, gather’d to their dead. 
And eager now the man did stoop, 
Lay down his load and reach his 
hands, 

And stretch his form and look stead¬ 
fast 

And frightful, and as one aghast. 

He lean’d, and then he raised his 
head, 

And look’d for Vasques, but in vain 
He peer’d along the deadly plain. 

Now, from the night another face, 
The last that follow’d through the 
deep, 

Comes on, falls dead within a pace. 
Yet Vasques still survives! But 
where? 

His last bold follower lies there, 
Thrown straight across old Morgan’s 
track, 

As if to check him, bid him back. 

He stands, he does not dare to stir, 
He watches by his charge asleep, 

He fears for her: but only her. 

The man who ever mock’d at death, 
He only dares to draw his breath. 

XXIII 

Beyond, and still as black despair, 
A man rose up, stood dark and tall, 


Stretch’d out his neck, reach’d forth, 
let fall 

Dark oaths, and Death stood waiting 
there. 

A tawny dead man stretch’d 
between, 

And Vasques set his foot thereon. 

The stars were seal’d, the moon was 
gone, 

The very darkness cast a shade. 

The scene was rather heard than 
seen, 

The rattle of a single blade. . . . 

A right foot rested on the dead, 

A black hand reach’d and clutch’d a 
beard, 

Then neither pray’d, nor dream'd of 
hope. 

A fierce face reach’d, a black face 
peer’d. . . . 

No bat went whirling overhead, 

No star fell out of Ethiope. 

The dead man lay between them 
there, 

The two men glared as tigers 
glare,— 

The black man held him by the 
beard. 

He wound his hand, he held him fast, 

And tighter held, as if he fear’d 

The man might ’scape him at the 
last. 

Whiles Morgan did not speak or 
stir, 

But stood in silent watch with her. 

Not long. ... A light blade 
lifted, thrust, 




jc £?>l)tp in t?je Besert 


243 


A blade that leapt and swept about, 
So wizard-like, like wand in spell, 

So like a serpent’s tongue thrust 
out. . . . 

Thrust twice, thrust thrice, thrust as 
he fell, 

Thrust through until it touched the 
dust. 

Yet ever as he thrust and smote, 

A black hand like an iron band 
Did tighten round a gasping throat. 
He fell, but did not loose his hand; 
The two lay dead upon the sand. 

Lo! up and from the fallen forms 
Two ghosts came, dark as gathered 
storms; 

Two gray ghosts stood, then looking 
back; 

With hands all empty, and hands 
clutch’d, 

Strode on in silence. Then they 
touch’d, 

Along the lonesome, chartless track, 
Where dim Plutonian darkness fell, 
Then touch’d the outer rim of hell; 
And looking back their great despair 
Sat sadly down, as resting there. 

XXIV 

As if there was a strength in 
death 

The battle seem’d to nerve the man 
To superhuman strength. He rose, 
Held up his head, began to scan 
The heavens and to take his breath 
Right strong and lustily. He now 
Resumed his part, and with his eye 
Fix’d on a star that filter’d through 


The farther west, push’d bare his 
brow, 

And kept his course with head held 
high, 

As if he strode his deck and drew 
His keel below some lofty light 
That watch’d the rocky reef at 
night. 

How lone he was, how patient she 
Upon that lonesome sandy sea! 

It were a sad, unpleasant sight 
To follow them through all the 
night, 

Until the time they lifted hand, 

And touch’d at last a water’d land. 


The turkeys walk’d the tangled 
grass, 

And scarcely turn’d to let them pass. 
There was no sign of man, nor sign 
Of savage beast. ’Twas so divine, 

It seem’d as if the bended skies 
Were rounded for this Paradise. 

The large-eyed antelope came down 
From off their windy hills, and blew 
Their whistles as they wander’d 
through 

The open groves of water’d wood; 
They came as light as if on wing, 
And reached their noses wet and 
brown 

And stamp’d their little feet and 
stood 

Close up before them, wondering. 

What if this were that Eden old, 
They found in this heart of the 
new 



244 


Wife £?f)ip in tfje jOesert 


And unnamed westmost world of 
gold, 

Where date and history had birth, 
And man began first wandering 
To go the girdle of the earth, 

And find the beautiful and true? 

It lies a little isle mid land, 

An island in a sea of sand; 

With reedy waters and the balm 
Of an eternal summer air; 

Some blowy pines toss here and 
there; 

And there are grasses long and 
strong, 

And tropic fruits that never fail: 

The Manzanita pulp, the palm, 

The prickly pear, with all the song 
Of summer birds. And there the 
quail 

Makes nest, and you may hear her 
call 

All day from out the chaparral. 

A land where white man never 
trod, 

And Morgan seems some demi-god, 
That haunts the red man’s spirit 
land. 

A land where never red man’s hand 
Is lifted up in strife at all, 

But holds it sacred unto those 
Who bravely fell before their foes, 
And rarely dares its desert wall. 

Here breaks nor sound of strife nor 
sign; 

Rare times a chieftain comes this 
way, 

Alone, and battle-scarr’d and gray, 
And then he bends devout before 


The maid who keeps the cabin-door, 
And deems her something all divine. 

Within the island’s heart ’tis said, 
Tall trees are bending down with 
bread, 

And that a fountain pure as Truth, 
And deep and mossy-bound and fair, 
Is bubbling from the forest there,— 
Perchance the fabled fount of youth! 
An isle where skies are ever fair, 
Where men keep never date nor day, 
Where Time has thrown his glass 
away. 

This isle is all their own. No more 
The flight by day, the watch by 
night. 

Dark Sybal twines about the door 
The scarlet blooms, the blossoms 
white 

And winds red berries in her hair, 
And never knows the name of care. 

She has a thousand birds; they 
blow 

In rainbow clouds, in clouds of 
snow; 

The birds take berries from her hand; 
They come and go at her command. 

She has a thousand pretty birds, 
That sing her summer songs all day; 
Small, black-hoof’d antelope in herds, 
And squirrels bushy-tail’d and gray, 
With round and sparkling eyes of 
pink, 

And cunning-faced as you can think. 

She has a thousand busy birds: 

And is she happy in her isle, 



TO)e £§>ea of Jfire 


245 


With all her feather’d friends and 
herds? 

For when has Morgan seen her 
smile? 

She has a thousand cunning birds, 

They would build nestings in her hair, 

She has brown antelope in herds; 

She never knows the name of care; 

Why, then, is she not happy there? 

All patiently she bears her part; 

She has a thousand birdlings there, 

These birds they would build in her 
hair; 

But not one bird builds in her heart. 

THE SEA 

In a land so jar that you wonder 
whether 

If God would know it should you fall 
down dead; 

In a land so far through the soft, warm 
weather 

That the sun sinks red as a warrior 
sped ,— 

Where the sea and the sky seem closing 
together, 

Seem closing together as a hook that is 
read; 

’ Tis the half-finished worldl Yon foot¬ 
fall retreating ,— 

It might he the Maker disturbed at 
his task. 

But the footfall of God, or the far pheas¬ 
ant heating, 

It is one and the same, whatever the 
mask 


She has a thousand birds; yet 
she 

Would give ten thousand cheerfully, 

All bright of plume and clear of 
tongue, 

And sweet as ever trilled or sung, 

For one small flutter’d bird to come 

And build within her heart, though 
dumb. 

She has a thousand birds; yet 
one 

Is lost, and, lo! she is undone. 

She sighs sometimes. She looks 
away, 

And yet she does not weep or say. 

OF FIRE 

It may wear unto man. The woods 
keep repeating 

The old sacred sermons, whatever 
you ask. 

It is man in his garden, scarce wakened 
as yet 

From the sleep that fell on him when 
woman was made. 

The new-finished garden is plastic and 
wet 

From the hand that has fashioned its 
unpeopled shade; 

And the wonder still looks from the fair 
woman's eyes 

As she shines through the wood like, 
the light from the skies. 

And a ship now and then for this far 
Ophir yore 




246 ®f)c £l>ea 

Draws in from the sea. It lies close 
to the hank; 

Then a dull, muffled sound on the 
slow shuffled plank 

.ds they load the black ship; hut you 
hear nothing more, 

And the dark, dewy vines, and the 
tall, somber wood 

Like twilight drop over the deep, 
sweeping flood. 

The black masts are tangled with 
branches that cross, 

The rich fragrant gums fall from 
branches to deck, 

J 'he thin ropes are swinging with 
streamers of moss 

That mantle all things like the 
shreds of a wreck; 

The long mosses swing, there is never a 
breath: 

The river rolls still as the river of death. 

I 

In the beginning,—ay, before 
The six-days’ labors were well o’er; 
Yea, while the world lay incomplete, 
Ere God had opened quite the door 
Of this strange land for strong men’s 
feet,— 

There lay against that westmost sea, 

A weird, wild land of mystery. 

A far white wall, like fallen moon, 
Girt out the world. The forest lay 
So deep you scarcely saw the day, 

Save in the high-held middle noon: 

It lay a land of sleep and dreams, 


of jfixe 

And clouds drew through like shore¬ 
less streams 

That stretch to where no man may 
say. 

Men reached it only from the sea, 
By black-built ships, that seemed to 
creep 

Along the shore suspiciously, 

Like unnamed monsters of the deep. 
It was the weirdest land, I ween, 
That mortal eye has ever seen. 

A dim, dark land of bird and 
beast, 

Black shaggy beasts with cloven 
claw,— 

A land that scarce knew prayer or 
priest, 

Or law of man, or Nature’s law; 
Where no fixed line drew sharp 
dispute 

’Twixt savage man and sullen brute. 

II 

It hath a history most fit 
For cunning hand to fashion on; 

No chronicler hath mentioned it; 

No buccaneer set foot upon. 

’Tis of an outlawed Spanish Don,— 
A cruel man, with pirate’s gold 
That loaded down his deep ship’s 
hold. 

A deep ship’s hold of plundered 
gold! 

The golden cruse, the golden cross, 
From many a church of Mexico, 
From Panama’s mad overthrow, 
From many a ransomed city’s loss, 




247 


®f)e §s>ca of Jfirt 


From many a follower fierce and 
bold, 

And many a foeman stark and cold. 

He found this wild, lost land. He 
drew 

His ship to shore. His ruthless 
crew, 

Like Romulus, laid lawless hand 

On meek brown maidens of the land, 

And in their bloody forays bore 

Red firebrands along the shore. 

Ill 

The red men rose at night. They 
came, 

A firm, unflinching wall of flame; 

They swept, as sweeps some fateful 
sea 

O’er land of sand and level shore 

That howls in far, fierce agony. 

The red men swept that deep, dark 
shore 

As threshers sweep a threshing floor. 

And yet beside the slain Don’s 
door 

They left his daughter, as they fled: 

They spared her life because she 
bore 

Their Chieftain’s blood and name. 
The red 

And blood-stained hidden hoards of 
gold 

They hollowed from the stout ship’s 
hold, 

And bore in many a slim canoe— 

To where? The good priest only 
knew. 


IV 

The course of life is like the sea; 
Men come and go; tides rise and fall; 
And that is all of history. 

The tide flows in, flows out today— 
And that is all that man may say; 
Man is, man was,—and that is all. 

Revenge at last came like a 
tide,— 

’Twas sweeping, deep and terrible; 
The Christian found the land, and 
came 

To take possession in Christ’s name. 
For every white man that had died 
I think a thousand red men fell,— 

A Christian custom; and the land 
Lay lifeless as some burned-out 
brand. 

V 

Ere while the slain Don’s daughter 
grew 

A glorious thing, a flower of spring, 

A something more than mortals 
knew; 

A mystery of grace and face,— 

A silent mystery that stood 
An empress in that sea-set wood, 
Supreme, imperial in her place. 

It might have been men’s lust for 
gold,— 

For all men knew that lawless crew 
Left hoards of gold in that ship’s 
hold, 

That drew ships hence, and silent 
drew 




248 ®ijt is>ea 

Strange Jasons there to love or 
dare; 

I never knew, nor need I care. 

I say it might have been this gold 
That ever drew and strangely drew 
Strong men of land, strange men of 
sea 

To seek this shore of mystery 
With all its wondrous tales untold; 

The gold or her, which of the two? 

It matters not to me, nor you. 

But this I know, that as for me, 
Between that face and the hard fate 
That kept me ever from my own, 

As some wronged monarch from his 
throne, 

All heaped-up gold of land or sea 
Had never weighed one feather’s 
weight. 

Her home was on the wooded 
height,— 

A woody home, a priest at prayer, 

A perfume in the fervid air, 

And angels watching her at night. 

I can but think upon the skies 
That bound that other Paradise. 

VI 

Below a star-built arch, as grand 
As ever bended heaven spanned, 

Tall trees like mighty columns 
grew— 

They loomed as if to pierce the blue, 
They reached, as reaching heaven 
through. 


of jfixt 

The shadowed stream rolled far 
below, 

Where men moved noiseless to and 
fro 

As in some vast cathedral, when 
The calm of prayer comes to men, 
And benedictions bless them so. 

What wooded sea-banks, wild and 
steep! 

What trackless wood! what snowy 
cone 

That lifted from this wood alone! 
What wild, wide river, dark and 
deep! 

What ships against the shore asleep! 

VII 

An Indian woman cautious crept 
About the land the while it slept, 
The relic of her perished race. 

She wore rich, rudely-fashioned 
bands 

Of gold above her bony hands; 

She hissed hot curses on the place! 

VIII 

Go seek the red man’s last retreat! 
What lonesome lands! what haunted 
lands! 

Red mouths of beasts, red men’s red 
hands; 

Red prophet-priests, in mute defeat. 
From Incan temples overthrown 
To lorn Alaska’s isles of bone 
The red man lives and dies alone. 

His boundaries in blood are writ! 
His land is ghostland! That is his, 




£S>ea of jftrc 


249 


Whatever we may claim of this; 
Beware how you shall enter it! 

He stands God’s guardian of ghost- 
lands; 

Yea, this same wrapped half-prophet 
stands 

All nude and voiceless, nearer to 
The dread, lone God than I or you. 

IX 

This bronzed child, by that river’s 
brink, 

Stood fair to see as you can think, 

As tall as tall reeds at her feet, 

As fresh as flowers in her hair; 

As sweet as flowers over-sweet, 

As fair as vision more than fair! 

How beautiful she was! How wild! 
How pure as water-plant, this 
child,— 

This one wild child of Nature here 
Grown tall in shadows. 

And how near 
To God, where no man stood between 
Her eyes and scenes no man hath 
seen,— 

This maiden that so mutely stood, 
The one lone woman of that wood. 

Stop still, my friend, and do not 
stir, 

Shut close your page and think of 
her. 

The birds sang sweeter for her face; 
Her 1 ifted eyes were like a grace 
To seamen of that solitude, 

However rough, however rude. 


The rippled river of her hair, 
Flowed in such wondrous waves, 
somehow 

Flowed down divided by her brow,— 
It mantled her within its care, 

And flooded all her form below, 

In its uncommon fold and flow. 

A perfume and an incense lay 
Before her, as an incense sweet 
Before blithe mowers of sweet May 
In early morn. Her certain feet 
Embarked on no uncertain way. 

Come, think how perfect before 
men, 

How sweet as sweet magnolia bloom 
Embalmed in dews of morning, 
when 

Rich sunlight leaps from midnight 
gloom 

Resolved to kiss, and swift to kiss 
Ere yet morn wakens man to bliss. 

X 

The days swept on. Her perfect 
year 

Was with her now. The sweet 
perfume 

Of womanhood in holy bloom, 

As when red harvest blooms appear, 
Possessed her soul. The priest did 
pray 

That saints alone should pass that 
way. 

A red bird built beneath her roof, 
Brown squirrels crossed her cabin 
sill, 

And welcome came or went at will. 




250 


®fje i?ea of Jfire 


A hermit spider wove his web 
Above her door and plied his trade, 
With none to fright or make afraid. 

The silly elk, the spotted fawn, 
And all dumb beasts that came to 
drink, 

That stealthy stole upon the brink 
By coming night or going dawn, 

On seeing her familiar face 
Would fearless stop and stand in place. 

She was so kind, the beasts of 
night 

Gave her the road as if her right; 
The panther crouching overhead 
In sheen of moss would hear her 
tread, 

And bend his eyes, but never stir 
Lest he by chance might frighten her. 

Yet in her splendid strength, her 
eyes, 

There lay the lightning of the skies; 
The love-hate of the lioness, 

To kill the instant or caress: 

A pent-up soul that sometimes grew 
Impatient; why, she hardly knew. 

At last she sighed, uprose, and 
threw 

Her strong arms out as if to hand 
Her love, sun-born and all complete 
At birth, to some brave lover’s feet 
On some far, fair, and unseen land, 

As knowing not quite what to do! 

XI 

How beautiful she was; Why, she 
Was inspiration! She was born 


To walk God’s sunlit hills at morn, 
Nor waste her by this wood-dark sea. 
What wonder, then, her soul’s white 
wings 

Beat at its bars, like living things! 

Once more she sighed! She wan¬ 
dered through 

The sea-bound wood, then stopped 
and drew 

Her hand above her face, and swept 
The lonesome sea, and all day kept 
Her face to sea, as if she knew 
Some day, some near or distant 
day, 

Her destiny should come that way. 

XII 

How proud she was! How darkly 
fair! 

How full of faith, of love, of strength! 
Her calm, proud eyes! Her great 
hair’s length,— 

Her long, strong, tumbled, careless 
hair, 

Half curled and knotted any¬ 
where,— 

By brow or breast, or cheek or chin, 
For love to trip and tangle in! 

XIII 

At last a tall strange sail was 
seen: 

It came so slow, so wearily, 

Came creeping cautious up the sea, 

As if it crept from out between 
The half-closed sea and sky that lay 
Tight wedged together, far away. 



251 


®fje ika 

She watched it, wooed it. She did 
pray 

It might not pass her by but bring 
Some love, some hate, some any¬ 
thing, 

To break the awful loneliness 
That like a nightly nightmare lay 
Upon her proud and pent-up soul 
Until it barely brooked control. 

XIV 

The ship crept silent up the sea, 

And came— 

You cannot understand 
How fair she was, how sudden she 
Had sprung, full grown, to woman¬ 
hood. 

How gracious, yet how proud and 
grand; 

How glorified, yet fresh and free, 

How human, yet how more than 
good. 

XV 

The ship stole slowly, slowly on,— 
Should you in Californian field 
In ample flower-time behold 
The soft south rose lift like a shield; 
Against the sudden sun at dawn 
A double handful of heaped gold, 

Why you, perhaps, might understand 
How splendid and how queenly she 
Uprose beside that wood-set sea. 

The 'torm-worn ship scarce seemed 
to creep 

From wave to wave. It scarce could 
keep— 


of Jftre 

How still this fair girl stood, how 
fair! 

How tall her presence as she stood 
Between that vast sea and west 
wood! 

How large and liberal her soul, 

How confident, how purely chare, 
How trusting; how untried the whole 
Great heart, grand faith, that 
blossomed there. 

XVI 

Ay, she was as Madonna to 
The tawny, lawless, faithful few 
Who touched her hand and knew her 
soul: 

She drew them, drew them as the 
pole 

Points all things to itself. 

She drew 

Men upward as a moon of spring 
High wheeling, vast and bosom-full, 
Half clad in clouds and white as wool, 
Draws all the strong seas following. 

Yet still she moved as sad, as 
lone 

As that same moon that leans above, 
And seems to search high heaven 
through 

For some strong, all sufficient love, 
For one brave love to be her own, 

Be all her own and ever true. 

Oh, I once knew a sad, sweet 
dove 

That died for such sufficient love, 
Such high, white love with wings to 
soar, 



252 


®Jje £S>ea of Jfirc 


That looks love level in the face, 

Nor wearies love with leaning o’er 
To lift love level to her place. 

XVII 

How slow before the sleeping 
breeze, 

That stranger ship from under seas! 
How like to Dido by her sea, 

When reaching arms imploringly,— 
Her large, round, rich, impassioned 
arms, 

Tossed forth from all her storied 
charms— 

This one lone maiden leaning stood 
Above that sea, beneath that wood! 

The ship crept strangely up the 
seas; 

Her shrouds seemed shreds, her masts 
seemed trees,— 

Strange tattered trees of toughest 
bough 

That knew no cease of storm till 
now. 

The maiden pitied her; she prayed 
Her crew might come, nor feel 
afraid; 

She prayed the winds might come,— 
they came, 

As birds that answer to a name. 

The maiden held her blowing 
hair 

That bound her beauteous self 
about; 

The sea-winds housed within her 
hair; 

She let it go, it blew in rout 
About her bosom full and bare. 


Her round, full arms were free as 
air, 

Her high hands clasped as clasped in 
prayer. 

XVIII 

The breeze grew bold, the battered 
ship 

Began to flap her weary wings; 

The tall, torn masts began to dip 

And walk the wave like living things. 

She rounded in, moved up the stream, 

She moved like some majestic dream. 

The captain kept her deck. He 
stood 

A Hercules among his men; 

And now he watched the sea, and 
then 

He peered as if to pierce the wood. 

He now looked back, as if pursued, 

Now swept the sea with glass as 
though 

He fled, or feared some prowling foe. 

Slow sailing up the river’s mouth, 

Slow tacking north, slow tacking 
south, 

He touched the overhanging wood; 

He kept his deck, his tall black 
mast 

Touched tree-top mosses as he 
passed; 

He touched the steep shore where she 
stood. 

XIX 

Her hands still clasped as if in 
prayer, 



®f)e S>ea of Jftre 


253 


Sweet prayer set to silentness; 

Her sun-browned throat uplifted, 
bare 

And beautiful. 

Her eager face 
Illumed with love and tenderness, 
And all her presence gave such grace, 
That she seemed more than mortal, 
fair. 

XX 

He saw. He could not speak. 
No more 

With lifted glass he swept the sea; 
No more he watched the wild new 
shore. 

Now foes might come, now friends 
might flee; 

He could not speak, he would not 
stir,— 

He saw but her, he feared but her. 

The black ship ground against the 
shore 

With creak and groan and rusty 
clank, 

And tore the mellow blossomed bank; 
She ground against the bank as one 
With long and weary journeys done, 
That will not rise to jonrney more. 

Yet still tall Jason silent stood 
And gazed against that sea-washed 
wood, 

As one whose soul is anywhere. 

All seemed so fair, so wondrous fair! 
At last aroused, he stepped to land 
Like some Columbus; then laid 
hand 


On lands and fruits, and rested 
there. 

XXI 

He found all fairer than fair 
morn 

In sylvan land, where waters run 
With downward leap against the 
sun, 

And full-grown sudden May is born. 
He found her taller than tall corn 
Tiptoe in tassel; found her sweet 
As vale where bees of Hybla meet. 

An unblown rose, an unread 
book; 

A wonder in her wondrous eyes; 

A large, religious, steadfast look 
Of faith, of trust,—the look of one 
New fashioned in fair Paradise. 

He read this book—read on and 
on 

From title page to colophon: 

As in cool woods, some summer day, 
You find delight in some sweet lay, 
And so entranced read on and on 
From title page to colophon. 

XXII 

And who was he that rested 
there,— 

This giant of a grander day, 

This Theseus of a nobler Greece, 

This Jason of the golden fleece? 

Aye, who was he? And who were 
they 

That came to seek the hidden gold 




254 


®f)e ibea of Jftre 


Long hollowed from the pirate’s 
hold? 

I do not know. You need not care. 

• ••••• • 

They loved, this maiden and this 
man, 

And that is all I surely know,— 

The rest is as the winds that blow, 
He bowed as brave men bow to fate, 
Yet proud and resolute and bold; 

She shy at first, and coyly cold, 

Held back and tried to hesitate,— 
Half frightened at this love that ran 
Hard gallop till her hot heart beat 
Like sounding of swift courser’s 
feet. 

XXIII 

Two strong streams of a land must 
run 

Together surely as the sun 
Succeeds the moon. Who shall 
gainsay 

The gods that reign, that wisely 
reign? 

Love is, love was, shall be again. 

Like death, inevitable it is; 
Perchance, like death, the dawn of 
bliss. 

Let us, then, love the perfect day, 
The twelve o’clock of life, and stop 
The two hands pointing to the top, 
And hold them tightly while we may. 

XXIV 

How beautiful is love! The walks 
By wooded ways; the silent talks 


Beneath the broad and fragrant 
bough. 

The dark deep wood, the dense black 
dell, 

Where scarce a single gold beam 
fell 

From out the sun. 

They rested now 
On mossy trunk. They wandered 
then 

Where never fell the feet of men. 
Then longer walks, then deeper 
woods, 

Then sweeter talks, sufficient sweet, 
In denser, deeper solitudes,— 

Dear careless ways for careless 
feet; 

Sweet talks of paradise for two, 

And only two to watch or woo. 

She rarely spake. All seemed a 
dream 

She would not waken from. She lay 
All night but waiting for the day, 
When she might see his face, and 
deem 

This man, with all his perils passed, 
Had found sweet Lotus-land at last. 

XXV 

The year waxed fervid, and the 
sun 

Fell central down. The forest lay 
A-quiver in the heat. The sea 
Below the steep bank seemed to run 
A molten sea of gold. 

Away 

Against the gray and rock-built 
isles 



®j)e £?ea of Jftre 


255 


That broke the molten watery miles 

Where lonesome sea-cows called all 
day, 

The sudden sun smote angrily. 

Therefore the need of deeper 
deeps, 

Of denser shade for man and maid, 

Of higher heights, of cooler steeps, 

Where all day long the sea-wind 
stayed. 

They sought the rock-reared steep. 
The breeze 

Swept twenty thousand miles of 
seas ; 

Had twenty thousand things to say, 

Of love, of lovers of Cathay, 

To lovers ’mid these mossy trees. 

XXVI 

To left, to right, below the 
height, 

Below the wood by wave and 
stream, 

Plumed pampas grass did wave and 
gleam 

And bend their lordly plumes, and 
run 

And shake, as if in very fright 

Before sharp lances of the sun. 

They saw the tide-bound, battered 
ship 

Creep close below against the bank; 

They saw it cringe and shrink; it 
shrank 

As shrinks some huge black beast 
with fear, 


When some uncommon dread is 
near. 

They heard the melting resin drip, 

As drip the last brave blood-drops 
when 

Red battle waxes hot with men. 

XXVII 

Yet what to her were burning seas, 

Or what to him was forest flame? 

They loved; they loved the glorious 
trees; 

The gleaming tides might rise or 
fall,— 

They loved the whispering winds that 
came 

From sea-lost spice-set isles un¬ 
known, 

With breath not warmer than their 
own; 

They loved, they loved,—and that 
was all. 

XXVIII 

Full noon! Above, the ancient 
moss 

From mighty boughs swang slow 
across, 

As when some priest slow chants a 
prayer 

And swings sweet smoke and per¬ 
fumed air 

From censer swinging—anywhere. 

He spake of love, of boundless 
love,— 

Of love that knew no other land, 

Or face, or place, or anything; 

Of love that like the wearied dove 




256 


®fje S>ea of Jfirc 


Could light nowhere, but kept the 
wing 

Till she alone put forth her hand 
And so received it in her ark 
From seas that shake against the 
dark! 

Her proud breast heaved, her pure, 
bare breast 

Rose like the waves in their unrest 
When counter storms possess the 
seas. 

Her mouth, her arch, uplifted 
mouth, 

Her ardent mouth that thirsted so,— 
No glowing love song of the South 
Can say; no man can say or know 
Such truth as lies beneath such 
trees. 

Her face still lifted up. And 
she 

Disdained the cup of passion he 
Hard pressed her panting lips to 
touch. 

She dashed it by, uprose, and she 
Caught fast her breath. She 
trembled much, 

Then sudden rose full height, and 
stood 

An empress in high womanhood: 

She stood a tower, tall as when 
Proud Roman mothers suckled men 
Of old-time truth and taught them 
such. 

XXIX 

Her soul surged vast as space is. 
She 

Was trembling as a courser when 


His thin flank quivers, and his feet 
Touch velvet on the turf, and he 
Is all afoam, alert and fleet 
As sunlight glancing on the sea, 

And full of triumph before men. 

At last she bended some her face, 
Half leaned, then put him back a 

pace, 

And met his eyes. 

Calm, silently 

Her eyes looked deep into his 
eyes,— 

As maidens search some mossy well 
And peer in hope by chance to tell 
By image there what future lies 
Before them, and what face shall be 
The pole-star of their destiny. 

Pure Nature’s lover! Loving him 
With love that made all pathways 
dim 

And difficult where he was not,— 
Then marvel not at forms forgot. 

And who shall chide? Doth priest 
know aught 

Of sign, or holy unction brought 
From over seas, that ever can 
Make man love maid or maid love 
man 

One whit the more, one bit the less, 
For all his mummeries to bless? 

Yea, all his blessings or his ban? 

The winds breathed warm asAraby; 
She leaned upon his breast, she lay 
A wide-winged swan with folded 
wing. 

He drowned his hot face in her 
hair, 



®be ibea of Jfire 


257 


He heard her great heart rise and 
sing; 

He felt her bosom swell. 

The air 

Swooned sweet with perfume of her 
form. 

Her breast was warm, her breath was 
warm, 

And warm her warm and perfumed 
mouth 

As summer journeys through the 
south. 

XXX 

The argent sea surged steep below, 

Surged languid in such tropic glow; 

And two great hearts kept surging 
so! 

The fervid kiss of heaven lay 

Precipitate on wood and sea. 

Two great souls glowed with 
ecstasy, 

The sea glowed scarce as warm as 

they. 

XXXI 

’Twas love’s warm amber after¬ 
noon. 

Two far-off pheasants thrummed a 
tune, 

A cricket clanged a restful air. 

The dreamful billows beat a rune 

Like heart regrets. 

A round her head 

There shone a halo. Men have said 

’Twas from a dash of Titian red 

That flooded all her storm of hair 

In gold and glory. But they knew, 


Yea, all men know there ever grew 

A halo roimd about her head 

Like sunlight scarcely vanished. 

XXXII 

How still she was! She only 
knew 

His love. She saw no life beyond. 

She loved with love that only lives 

Outside itself and selfishness,— 

A love that glows in its excess; 

A love that melts pure gold, and 
gives 

Thenceforth to all who come to 
woo 

No coins but this face stamped 
thereon,— 

Ay, this one image stamped upon 

Pure gold, with some dim date long 
gone. r 

XXXIII 

They kept the headland high; the 
ship 

Below began to chafe her chain, 

To groan as some great beast in 
pain: 

While white fear leapt from lip to 
lip: 

“The woods on fire! The woods in 
flame! 

Come down and save us in God’s 
name!” 

He heard! he did not speak or 
stir,— 

He thought of her, of only her, 


17 




258 


tKfje g>ea of Jfire 


While flames behind, before them 
lay 

To hold the stoutest heart at bay! 

Strange sounds were heard far up 
the flood, 

Strange, savage sounds that chilled 
the blood! 

Then sudden, from the dense, dark 
wood 

Above, about them where they stood 

Strange, hairy beasts came peering 
out; 

And now was thrust a long black 
snout, 

And now a tusky mouth. It was 

A sight to make the stoutest pause. 

“Cut loose the ship!” the black 
mate cried; 

“Cut loose the ship!” the crew 
replied. 

They drove into the sea. It lay 

As light as ever middle day. 

And then a half-blind bitch that 
sat 

All slobber-mouthed, and monkish 
cowled 

With great, broad, floppy, leathern 
ears 

Amid the men, rose up and howled, 

And doleful howled her plaintive 
fears, 

While all looked mute aghast thereat. 

It was the grimmest eve, I think, 

That ever hung on Hades’ brink. 

Great broad-winged bats possessed 
the air, 

Bats whirling blindly everywhere; 

It was such troubled twilight eve 

As never mortal would believe. 


XXXIV 

Some say the crazed hag lit the 
wood 

In circle where the lovers stood; 
Some say the gray priest feared the 
crew 

Might find at last the hoard of gold 
Long hidden from the black ship’s 
hold,— 

I doubt me if men ever knew. 

But such mad, howling, flame-lit 
shore 

No mortal ever knew before. 

Huge beasts above that shining 

sea, 

Wild, hideous beasts with shaggy 
hair, 

With red mouths lifting in the air, 

All piteous howled, and plain¬ 
tively,— 

The wildest sounds, the weirdest 
sight 

That ever shook the walls of night. 

How lorn they howled, with lifted 
head, 

To dim and distant isles that lay 
Wedged tight along a line of red, 
Caught in the closing gates of day 
’Twixt sky and sea and far away,— 

It was the saddest sound to hear 
That ever struck on human ear. 

They doleful called; and answered 
they 

The plaintiff sea-cows far away,— 

The great sea-cows that called from 
isles, 

Away across red flaming miles, 




®f)e £bea of jftre 


259 


With dripping mouths and lolling 
tongue, 

As if they called for captured 
young,— 


XXXV 

The sun, outdone, lay down. He 
lay 

In seas of blood. He sinking drew 

The gates of sunset sudden to, 

And they in shattered fragments lay. 

Then night came, moving in mad 
flame; 

Then full night, lighted as he came, 

As lighted by high summer sun 

Descending through the burning 
blue. 

It was a gold and amber hue, 

Aye, all hues blended into one. 

The moon came on, came leaning 
low. 

The moon spilled splendor where she 
came, 

And filled the world with yellow 
flame 

Along the far sea-isles ag' ^w; 

She fell along that amber flood, 

A silver flame in seas of blood. 

It was the strangest moon, ah me! 

That ever settled on God’s sea. 


XXXVI 

Slim snakes slid down from fern 
and grass, 

From wood, from fen, from any¬ 
where ; 

You could not step, you could not 
pass, 

And you would hesitate to stir, 

Lest in some sudden, hurried tread 
Your foot struck some unbruised 
head: 

It seemed like some infernal 
dream; 

They slid in streams into the stream; 
They curved and sinuous curved 
across, 

Like living streams of living moss,— 
There is no art of man can make 
A ripple like a swimming snake! 

XXXVII 

Encompassed, lorn, the lovers 
stood, 

Abandoned there, death in the air! 
That beetling steep, that blazing 
wood— 

Red flame! red flame, and every¬ 
where! 

Yet he was born to strive, to bear 
The front of battle. He would die 
In noble effort, and defy 
The grizzled visage of despair. 

He threw his two strong arms 
full length 

As if to surely test their strength; 
Then tore his vestments, textile 
things 


The huge sea-cows that called the 
whiles 

Their great wide mouths were mouth¬ 
ing moss; 

And still they doleful called across 
From isles beyond the watery miles. 
No sound can half so doleful be 
As sea-cows calling from the sea. 




260 


Wte H>ea of Jfire 


That could but tempt the demon 
wings 

Of flame that girt them round 
about, 

Then threw his garments to the air 
As one that laughed at death, at 
doubt, 

And like a god stood thewed and 
bare. 

She did not hesitate; she knew 
The need of action; swift she threw 
Her burning vestments by, and 
bound 

Her wondrous wealth of hair that 
fell 

An all-concealing cloud around 
Her glorious presence, as he came 
To seize and bear her through the 
flame,— 

An Orpheus out of burning hell! 

He leaned above her, wound his 
arm 

About her splendor, while the noon 
Of flood tide, manhood, flushed his 
face, 

And high flames leapt the high head¬ 
land !— 

They stood as twin-hewn statues 
stand, 

High lifted in some storied place. 

He clasped her close, he spoke of 
death,— 

Of death and love in the same 
breath. 

He clasped her close; her bosom lay 
Like ship safe anchored in some bay, 
Where never rage or rack of main 
Might even shake her anchor chain. 


XXXVIII 

The flames! They could not stand 
or stay; 

Beyond, the beetling steep, the sea! 

But at his feet a narrow way, 

A short steep path, pitched suddenly 

Safe open to the river’s beach, 

Where lay a small white isle in 
reach,— 

A small, white, rippled isle of sand 

Where yet the two might safely land. 

And there, through smoke and 
flame, behold 

The priest stood safe, yet all 
appalled! 

He reached the cross; he cried, he 
called; 

He waved his high-held cross of 
gold. 

He called and called, he bade them 
fly 

Through flames to him, nor bide and 
die! 

Her lover saw; he saw, and knew 

His giant strength could bear her 
through. 

And yet he would not start or stir. 

He clasped her close as death can 
hold, 

Or dying miser clasp his gold,— 

His hold became a part of her. 

He would not give her up! He 
would 

Not bear her waveward though he 
could! 

That height was heaven; the wave 
was hell. 



261 


®fje ibea 

He clasped her close,—what else had 
done 

The manliest man beneath the sun? 
Was it not well? was it not well? 

O man, be glad! be grandly glad, 
And king-like walk thy ways of 
death! 

For more than years of bliss you 
had 

That one brief time you breathed her 
breath, 

Yea, more than years upon a throne 
That one brief time you held her 
fast, 

Soul surged to soul, vehement, 
vast,— 

True breast to breast, and all your 
own. 

Live me one day, one narrow night, 
One second of supreme delight 
Like that, and I will blow like chaff 
The hollow years aside, and laugh 
A loud trimphant laugh, and I, 
King-like and crowned, will gladly 
die. 

Oh, but to wrap my love with 
flame! 

With flame within, with flame 
without! 

Oh, but to die like this, nor doubt— 
To die and know her still the same! 

To know that down the ghostly ~hore 
Snow-white she walks for ever more! 

XXXIX 

He poised her, held her high in 
air,— 


of Jfire 

His great strong limbs, his great arm’s 
length!— 

Then turned his knotted shoulders 
bare 

As birth-time in his splendid strength, 
And strode with lordly, kingly stride 
To where the high and wood-hung 
edge 

Looked down, far down upon the 
molten tide. 

The flames leaped with him to the 
ledge, 

The flames leapt leering at his side. 
XL 

He leaned above the ledge. Below 
He saw the black ship grope and 
cruise,— 

A midge below, a mile below. 

His limbs were knotted as the thews 
Of Hercules in his death-throe. 

The flame! the flame! the envious 
flame! 

She wound her arms, she wound her 
hair 

About his tall form, grand and 
bare, 

To stay the fierce flame where it 
came. 

The black ship, like some moonlit 
wreck, 

Below along the burning sea 
Groped on and on all silently, 

With silent pigmies on her deck. 

That midge-like ship, far, far 
below; 



262 


®Jje H>ea of Jfire 


That mirage lifting from the hill! 

His flame-lit form began to grow,— 
To glow and grow more grandly 
still. 

The ship so small, that form so tall, 
It grew to tower over all. 

A tall Colossus, bronze and gold, 
As if that flame-lit form were he 
Who once bestrode the Rhodian sea, 
And ruled the watery world of old: 
As if the lost Colossus stood 
Above that burning sea of wood. 

And she! that shapely form up¬ 
held, 

Held high as if to touch the sky, 
What airy shape, how shapely 
high,— 

What goddess of the seas of eld! 

Her hand upheld, her high right 
hand, 

As if she would forget the land; 

As if to gather stars, and heap 
The stars like torches there to light 
Her hero’s path across the deep 
To some far isle that fearful night. 

XLI 

The envious flame, one moment 
leapt 

Enraged to see such majesty, 

Such scorn of death; such kingly 
scorn . . . 

Then like some lightning-riven tree 


They sank down in that flame—and 
slept. 

Then all was hushed above that steep 

So still that they might sleep and 
sleep, 

As when a Summer’s day is born. 

At last! from out the embers leapt 

Two shafts of light above the 
night,— 

Two wings of flame that lifting 
swept 

In steady, calm, and upward 
flight; 

Two wings of flame against the 
white 

Far-lifting, tranquil, snowy cone; 

Two wings of love, two wings of 
light, 

Far, far above that troubled night, 

As mounting, mounting to God’s 
throne. 

XLII 

And all night long that upward 
light 

Lit up the sea-cow’s bed below: 

The far sea-cows still calling so 

It seemed as they must call all 
night. 

All night! there was no night. Nay, 
nay, 

There was no night. The night that 
lay 

Between that awful eve and day,— 

That nameless night was burned 
away. 




8 i?ons of tfje g>outfj 


263 


A SONG OF 

Part I 

Rhyme on, rhyme on, in reedy flow, 
0 river, rhymer ever sweet! 

The story of thy land is meet; 

The stars stand listening to know. 

Rhyme on, 0 river of the earth! 

Gray father of the dreadful seas, 

Rhyme on! the world upon its knees 
Invokes thy songs , thy wealth, thy 
worth. 

Rhyme on! the reed is at thy mouth, 
O kingly minstrel, mighty stream! 

Thy Crescent City, like a dream, 
Hangs in the heaven of my South. 

Rhyme on, rhyme on! these broken 
strings 

Sing sweetest in this warm south 
wind; 

I sit thy willow banks and bind 
A broken harp that fitful sings. 

1 

And where is my silent, sweet 
blossom-sown town? 

And where is her glory, and what has 
she done? 

By her Mexican seas in the path of 
the sun, 

Sit you down; in her crescent of seas, 
sit you down. 

Aye, glory enough by her Mexican 
seas! 


THE SOUTH 

Aye, story enough in that battle-tom 
town, 

Hidden down in her crescent of seas, 
hidden down 

In her mantle and sheen of magnolia- 
white trees. 

But mine is the story of souls; of a 
soul 

That barter’d God’s limitless kingdom 
for gold,— 

Sold stars and all space for a thing he 
did hold 

In his palm for a day; and then hid 
with the mole: 

Sad soul of a rose-land, of moss- 
mantled oak— 

Gray, Druid-old oaks; and the moss 
that sways 

And swings in the wind is the battle- 
smoke 

Of duelists dead, in her storied days: 

Sad soul of a love-land, of church- 
bells and chimes; 

A love-land of altars and orange- 
flowers; 

And that is the reason for all these 
rhymes— 

That church-bells are ringing through 
all these hours! 

This sun-land has churches, has 
priests at prayer, 

White nuns, that are white as the far 
north snow: 

They go where duty may bid them 
go — 




264 8 £j>o«s of 

They dare when the angel of death is 
there. 

This love-land has ladies, so fair, 
so fair, 

In their Creole quarter, with great 
black eyes— 

So fair that the Mayor must keep 
them there 

Lest troubles, like troubles of Troy, 
arise. 

This sun-land has ladies with eyes 
held down, 

Held down, because if they lifted 
them, 

Why, you would be lost in that old 
French town, 

Though even you held to God’s gar¬ 
ment hem. 

This love-land has ladies so fair, so 
fair, 

That they bend their eyes to the holy 
book, 

Lest you should forget yourself, your 
prayer, 

And never more cease to look and to 
look. 

And these are the ladies that no 
men see, 

And this is the reason men see them 
not; 

Better their modest, sweet mystery— 

Better by far than red battle-shot. 

And so, in this curious old town of 
tiles, 

The proud French quarter of days 
long gone, 


tlje H>outfj 

In castles of Spain and tumble-down 
piles, 

These wonderful ladies live on atid on. 

I sit in the church where they come 
and go; 

I dream of glory that has long since 
gone; 

Of the low raised high, of the high 
brought low 

As in battle-torn days of Napoleon. 

These brass-plaited places, so rich, 
so poor! 

One quaint old church at the edge of 
the town 

Has white tombs laid to the very 
church door— 

White leaves in the story of life 
turn’d down: 

White leaves in the story of life are 
these, 

The low, white slabs in the long, 
strong grass, 

Where glory has emptied her hour¬ 
glass, 

And dreams with the dreamers 
beneath the trees. 

I dream with the dreamers beneath 
the sod, 

Where souls pass by to the great 
white throne; 

I count each tomb as a mute mile¬ 
stone 

For weary, sweet souls on their way 
to God. 

I sit all day by the vast, strong 
stream, 

X 



& £s>ong of 

'Mid low white slabs in the long, 
strong grass, 

Where time has forgotten for aye to 
pass, 

To dream, and ever to dream and to 
dream. 

This quaint old church, with its 
dead to the door, 

By the cypress swamp at the edge of 
the town, 

So restful it seems that you want to 
sit down 

And rest you, and rest you for ever¬ 
more. 

Ill 

The azure curtain of God’s house 

Draws back, and hangs star-pinned 
to space; 

I hear the low, large moon arouse, 

And slowly lift her languid face. 

I see her shoulder up the east, 

Low-necked, and large as woman¬ 
hood— 

Low-necked, as for some ample 
feast 

Of gods, within yon orange-wood. 

She spreads white palms, she 
whispers peace,— 

Sweet peace on earth forevermore; 

Sweet peace for two beneath the 
trees, 

Sweet peace for one within the door. 

The bent stream, as God’s 
scimitar, 


tfje 265 

Flashed in the sun, sweeps on and 
on, 

Till sheathed, like some great sword 
new-drawn, 

In seas beneath the Carib’s star. 

The high moon climbs the sapphire 
hill, 

The lone sweet lady prays within; 

The crickets keep such clang and 
din— 

They are so loud, earth is so still! 

And two men glare in silence 
there! 

The bitter, jealous hate of each 

Has grown too deep for deed or 
speech— 

The lone sweet lady \ eeps her 
prayer. 

The vast moon high through 
heaven’s field 

In circling chariot is rolled; 

The golden stars are spun and 
reeled, 

And woven into cloth of gold. 

The white magnolia fills the night 

With perfume, as the proud moon 
fills 

The glad earth with her ample light 

From out her awful sapphire hills. 

White orange-blossoms fill the 
boughs 

Above, about the old church-door; 

They wait the bride, the bridal 
vows,— 

They never hung so fair before. 



266 


3 gxmg of 

The two men glare as dark as sin! 
And yet all seem so fair, so white, 

You would not reckon it was night,— 
The while the lady prays within. 

IV 

She prays so very long and late,— 
The two men, weary, waiting there,— 
The great magnolia at the gate 
Bends drowsily above her prayer. 

The cypress in his cloak of moss, 
That watches on in silent gloom, 

Has leaned and shaped a shadow cross 
Above the namelss, lowly tomb. 

• •••*«• 

What can she pray for? What her 
sin? 

What folly of a maid so fair? 

What shadows bind the wondrous 
hair 

Of one who prays so long within? 

The palm-trees guard in regiment, 
Stand right and left without the gate; 
The myrtle-moss trees wait and wait; 
The tall magnolia leans intent. 

The cypress-trees, on gnarled old 
knees, 

Far out the dank and marshy deep 
Where slimy monsters groan and 
creep, 

Kneel with her in their marshy seas. 

What can her sin be? Who shall 
know? 

The night flies by,—a bird on 
wing; 


tf)e ikmtf) 

The men no longer to and fro 
Stride up and down, or anything. 

For one, so weary and so old, 

Has hardly strength to stride or stir; 
He can but hold his bags of gold,— 
But hug his gold and wait for her. 

The two stand still,—stand face to 
face. 

The moon slides on, the midnight air 
Is perfumed as a house of prayer,— 
The maiden keeps her holy place. 

Two men! And one is gray, but 

one 

Scarce lifts a full-grown face as yet; 
With light foot on life’s threshold 
set,— 

Is he the other’s sun-born son? 

And one is of the land of snow, 

And one is of the land of sun; 

A black-eyed, burning youth is one, 
But one has pulses cold and slow: 

Aye, cold and slow from clime of 
snow 

Where Nature’s bosom, icy bound, 
Holds all her forces, hard, profound, 
Holds close where all the South lets 
go. 

Blame not the sun, blame not the 
snows,— 

God’s great schoolhouse for all is 
clime; 

The great school teacher, Father 
Time, 

And each has borne as best he 
knows. 




& ^ong of ttje ikmtfj 


267 


At last the elder speaks,—he cries, 
He speaks as if his heart would break; 
He speaks out as a man that dies,— 
As dying for some lost love’s sake: 

“Come, take this bag of gold, and 
go! 

Come, take one bag! See, I have two! 
Oh, why stand silent, staring so, 
When I would share my gold with 
you? 

“Come, take this gold! See how I 
pray! 

See how I bribe, and beg, and buy,— 
Aye, buy! and beg, as you, too, may 
Some day before you come to die. 

“ God! take this gold, I beg, I pray! 
I beg as one who thirsting cries 
For but one drop of drink, and dies 
In some lone, loveless desert way. 

“You hesitate? Still hesitate? 
Stand silent still and mock my pain? 
Still mock to see me wait and wait, 
And wait her love, as earth waits 
rain? ” 

V 

O broken ship! O starless shore! 
O black and everlasting night' 
Where love comes never any more 
To light man’s way with heaven’s 
light. 

A godless man with bags of gold 
I think a most unholy sight; 

Ah, who so desolate at night, 

Amid death’s sleepers still and cold? 


A godless man on holy ground 
I think a most unholy sight. 

I hear death trailing, like a hound, 
Hard after him, and swift to bite. 

VI 

The vast moon settles to the west; 
Yet still two men beside that tomb, 
And one would sit thereon to rest,— 
Aye, rest below, if there were room. 

VII 

What is this rest of death, sweet 
friend? 

What is the rising up, and where? 

I say, death is a lengthened prayer, 

A longer night, a larger end. 

Hear you the lesson I once learned: 
I died; I sailed a million miles 
Through dreamful, flowery, restful 
isles,— 

She was not there, and I returned. 

I say the shores of death and sleep 
Are one; that when we, wearied, come 
To Lethe’s waters, and lie dumb, 
’Tis death, not sleep, holds us to keep. 

Yea, we lie dead for need of rest, 
And so the soul drifts out and o’er 
The vast still waters to the shore 
Beyond, in pleasant, tranquil quest: 

It sails straight on, forgetting pain, 
Past isles of peace, to perfect rest,— 
Now were it best abide, or best 
Return and take up life again? 



268 


S i£>ong of tfje g’outf) 


And that is all of death there is, 
Believe me. If you find your love 
In that far land, then, like the dove, 
Pluck olive boughs, nor back to this. 

But if you find your love not there; 
Or if your feet feel sure, and you 
Have still allotted work to do,— 
Why, then haste back to toil and care. 

Death is no mystery. ’Tis plain 
If death be mystery, then sleep 
Is mystery thrice strangely deep,— 
For oh, this coming back again! 

Austerest ferryman of souls! 

I see the gleam of shining shores; 

I hear thy steady stroke of oars 
Above the wildest wave that rolls. 

O Charon, keep thy somber ships! 

I come, with neither myrrh nor balm, 
Nor silver piece in open palm,— 

Just lone, white silence on my lips. 

VIII 

She prays so long! she prays so late! 
What sin in all this flower land 
Against her supplicating hand 
Could have in heaven any weight? 

Prays she for her sweet self alone? 
Prays she for some one far away, 

Or some one near and dear today, 

Or some poor lorn, lost soul unknown? 

It seems to me a selfish thing 
To pray forever for one’s self; 

It seems to me like heaping pelf, 

In heaven by hard reckoning. 


Why, I would rather stoop and bear 
My load of sin, and bear it well 
And bravely down to your hard hell, 
Than pray and pray a selfish prayer! 

IX 

The swift chameleon in the gloom— 
This gray mom silence so profound!— 
Forsakes its bough, glides to the 
ground, 

Then up, and lies acrosss the tomb. 

It erst was green as olive-leaf; 

It then grew gray as myrtle moss 
The time it slid the tomb across; 

And now 't is marble-white as grief. 

The little creature’s hues are gone 
Here in the gray and ghostly light; 

It lies so pale, so panting white,— 
White as the tomb it lies upon. 

The two still by that nameless 
tomb! 

And both so still! You might have 
said, 

These two men, they are also dead, 
And only waiting here for room. 

How still beneath the orange- 
bough ! 

How tall was one, how bowed was 
one! 

The one was as a journey done, 

The other as beginning now. 

And one was young,—young with 
that youth 

Eternal that belongs to truth; 



3 £S>ong of tfje ^>out|) 


269 


And one was old,—old with the years 
That follow fast on doubts and fears. 

And yet the habit of command 
Was his, in every stubborn part; 

No common knave was he at heart, 
Nor his the common coward’s hand. 

He looked the young man in the 
face, 

So full of hate, so frank of hate; 

The other, standing in his place, 
Stared back as straight and hard as 
fate. 

And now he sudden turned away, 
And now he paced the path, and now 
Came back beneath the orange bough, 
Pale-browed, with lips as cold as clay. 

As mute as shadows on a wall, 

As silent still, as dark as they, 

Before that stranger, bent and gray, 
The youth stood scornful, proud and 
tall. 

He stood a clean palmetto tree 
With Spanish daggers guarding it; 
Nor deed, nor word, to him seemed fit 
While she prayed on so silently. 

He slew his rival with his eyes— 
His eyes were daggers piercing deep, 
So deep that blood began to creep 
From their deep wounds and drop 
wordwise. 

His eyes so black, so bright, that 
they 

Might raise the dead, the living slay, 


If but the dead, the living bore 
Such hearts as heroes had of yore. 

Two deadly arrows barbed in black, 
And feathered, too, with raven’s 
wing; 

Two arrows that could silent sting, 
And with a death-wound answer back. 

How fierce he was! how deadly still 
In that mesmeric, searching stare 
Turned on the pleading stranger there 
That drew to him, despite his will! 

So like a bird down-fluttering, 
Down, down, beneath a snake’s 
bright eyes, 

He stood, a fascinated thing, 

That hopeless, unresisting, dies. 

He raised a hard hand as before, 
Reached out the gold, and offered it 
With hand that shook as ague-fit,— 
The while the youth but scorned the 
more. 

“You will not touch it? In God’s 
name, 

Who are you, and what are you, then? 
Come, take this gold, and be of men,— 
A human form with human aim. 

“Yea, take this gold,—she must be 
mine! 

She shall be mine! I do not fear 
Your scowl, your scorn, your soul 
austere, 

The living, dead, or your dark sign. 

“ I saw her as she entered there; 

I saw her, and uncovered stood; 



270 


& g>ong of tfjc S>outf) 


The perfume of her womanhood 
Was holy incense on the air. 

“She left behind sweet sanctity, 
Religion went the way she went; 

I cried I would repent, repent! 

She passed on, all unheeding me. 

“Her soul is young, her eyes are 
bright 

And gladsome, as mine own are dim; 

But oh, I felt my senses swim 

The time she passed me by tonight!— 

“The time she passed, nor raised 
her eyes 

To hear me cry I would repent, 

Nor turned her head to hear my cries, 
But swifter went the way she we*nt,— 

“Went swift as youth, for all these 
years! 

And this the strangest thing appears, 
That lady there seems just the 
same,— 

Sweet Gladys—Ah! you know her 
name? 

“You hear her name and start that 

I 

Should name her dear name trembling 
so? 

Why, boy, when I shall come to die 
That name shall be the last I know. 

“ That name shall be the last sweet 
name 

My lips shall utter in this life! 

That name is brighter than bright 
flame,— 

That lady is mine own sweet wife! 


“Ah, start and catch your burning 
breath! 

Ah, start and clutch your deadly 
knife! 

If this be death, then be it death,— 
But that loved lady is my wife! 

“Yea, you are stunned! your face 
is white, 

That I should come confronting you, 
As comes a lorn ghost of the night 
From out the past, and to pursue. 

“You thought me dead? You 
shake your head, 

You start back horrified to know 
That she is loved, that she is wed, 
That you have sinned in loving so. 

“Yet what seems strange, that lady 
there, 

Housed in the holy house of prayer, 
Seems just the same for all her 
tears,— 

For all my absent twenty years. 

“Yea, twenty years tonight, to¬ 
night- 

just twenty years this day, this hour, 
Since first I plucked that perfect 
flower, 

And not one witness of the rite. 

“Nay, do not doubt,— I tell you 
true! 

Her prayers, her tears, her constancy 
Are all for me, are all for me,— 

And not one single thought for you! 

“ I knew, I knew she would be here 
This night of nights to pray for me! 






^>ong of tfje ^outfj 


271 


And how could I for twenty year 

Know this same night so certainly? 

“Ah me! some thoughts that we 
would drown, 

Stick closer than a brother to 

The conscience, and pursue, pursue, 

Like baying hound, to hunt us down. 

“And, then, that date is history; 

For on that night this shore was 
shelled, 

And many a noble mansion felled, 

With many a noble family. 

“I wore the blue; I watched the 
flight 

Of shells, like stars tossed through the 
air 

To blow your hearth-stones—any¬ 
where, 

That wild, illuminated night. 

“Nay, rage befits you not so well; 

Why, you were but a babe at best; 

Your cradle some sharp bursted shell 

That tore, maybe, your mother’s 
breast! 

“Hear me! We came in honored 
war. 

The risen world was on your track! 

The whole North-land was at our 
back, 

From Hudson’s bank to the North 
Star! 

“And from the North to palm-set 
sea 

The splendid fiery cyclone swept. 

Your fathers fell, your mothers wept, 

Their nude babes clinging to the knee. 


“A wide and desolated track: 
Behind, a path of ruin lay; 

Before, some women by the way 
Stood mutely gazing, clad in black. 

“From silent women waiting there 
White tears came down like still, 
small rain ; 

Their own sons of the battle-plain 
Were now but viewless ghosts of air. 

“Their own dear, daring boys in 
gray,— 

They should not see them any more; 
Our cruel drums kept telling o’er 
The time their own sons went away. 

“Through burning town, by burst¬ 
ing shell— 

Yea, I remember well that night; 

I led through orange-lanes of light, 

As through some hot outpost of hell! 

“That night of rainbow shot and 
shell 

Sent from yon surging river’s breast 
To waken me, no more to rest,— 
That night I should remember well! 

“That night, amid the maimed and 
dead— 

A night in history set down 
By light of many a burning town, 

And written all across in red,— 

“Her father dead, her brothers 
dead, 

Her home in flames,—what else could 
she 

But fly all helpless here to me, 

A fluttered dove, that night of dread ? 



272 $3 i£>ong of 

“Short time, hot time had I to 
woo 

Amid the red shells battle-chime; 

But women rarely reckon time, 

And perils waken love anew. 

“Aye, then I wore a captain’s 
sword; 

And, too, had oftentime before 
Doffed cap at her dead father’s door, 
And passed a lover’s pleasant word. 

“ And then—ah, I was comely then! 

I bore no load upon my back, 

I heard no hounds upon my track, 

But stood the tallest of tall men. 

“Her father’s and her mother’s 
shrine, 

This church amid the orange-wood; 
So near and so secure it stood, 

It seemed to beckon as a sign. 

“Its white cross seemed to beckon 
me; 

My heart was strong, and it was mine 
To throw myself upon my knee, 

To beg to lead her to this shrine. 

“She did consent. Through lanes 
of light 

I led through this church-door that 
night— 

Let fall your hand! Take back your 
face 

And stand,—stand patient in your 
place! 

“She loved me; and she loves me 
still. 

Yea, she clung close to me that hour 


tije §£>outf) 

As honey-bee to honey-flower,— 
And still is mine through good or ill. 

“ The priest stood there. He spake 
the prayer; 

He made the holy, mystic sign, 

And she was mine, was wholly 
mine,— 

Is mine this moment, I can swear! 

“Then days, then nights of vast 
delight,— 

Then came a doubtful later day; 

The faithful priest, nor far away, 
Watched with the dying in the fight: 

“The priest amid the dying, dead, 
Kept duty on the battle-field,— 
That midnight marriage unrevealed 
Kept strange thoughts running thro’ 
my head. 

“At last a stray ball struck the 
priest; 

This vestibule his chancel was; 

And now none lived to speak her 
cause, 

Record, or champion her the least. 

Hear me! I had been bred to hate 
All priests, their mummeries and all. 
Ah, it was fate,—ah, it was fate 
That all things tempted to my fall! 

“And then the dashing songs we 

sang 

Those nights when rudely reveling,— 
Such songs that only soldiers sing,— 
Until the very tent-poles rang! 



273 


8 H>ong of 

“What is the rhyme that rhymers 
say, 

Of maidens born to be betrayed 
By epaulettes and shining blade, 
While soldiers love and ride away? 

“And then my comrades spake her 
name 

Half taunting, with a touch of shame; 
Taught me to hold that lily-flower 
As some light pastime of the hour. 

“And then the ruin in the land, 

The death, dismay, the lawlessness! 
Men gathered gold on every hand,— 
Heaped gold: and why should I do 
less? 

“ The cry for gold was in the air,— 
For Creole gold, for precious things; 
The sword kept prodding here and 
there, 

Through bolts and sacred fastenings. 

“‘Get gold! get gold!’ This was 
the cry. 

And I loved gold. What else could I 
Or you, or any earnest one, 

Born in this getting age, have done? 

“With this one lesson taught from 
youth, 

And ever taught us, to get gold,— 

To get and hold, and ever hold,— 

What else could I have done, for¬ 
sooth? 

“She, seeing how I crazed for gold, 
This girl, my wife, one late night told 
Of treasures hidden close at hand, 

In her dead father’s mellow land; 


tfje feoutf) 

“Of gold she helped her brothers 
hide 

Beneath a broad banana-tree 
The day the two in battle died, 

The night she, dying, fled to me. 

“It seemed too good; I laughed to 
scorn 

Her trustful tale. She answered not; 
But meekly on the morrow morn 
These two great bags of bright gold 
brought. 

“And when she brought this gold 
to me,— 

Red Creole gold, rich, rare, and old,— 
When I at last had gold, sweet gold, 

I cried in very ecstasy. 

“Red gold! rich gold! two bags of 
gold! 

The two stout bags of gold she 
brought 

And gave, with scarce a second 
thought,— 

Why, her two hands could scarcely 
hold! 

“Now I had gold! two bags of 
gold! 

Two wings of gold, to fly, and fly 
The wide world’s girth; red gold to 
hold 

Against my heart for aye and aye! 

“My country’s lesson: ‘Gold! get 
gold!’ 

I learned it well in land of snow; 

And what can glow, so brightly glow, 
Long winter nights of northern cold? 



274 


8 S>ons of 

“Aye, now at last, at last I had 
The one thing, all fair things above, 
My land had taught me most to love! 

A miser now! and I grew mad. 

“With these two bags of gold my 
own, 

I soon began to plan some night 
For flight, for far and sudden flight,— 
For flight; and, too, for flight alone. 

“I feared! I feared! My heart 
grew cold,— 

Some one might claim this gold of 
me! 

I feared her,—feared her purity— 
Feared all things but my bags of gold. 

“I grew to hate her face, her creed, 
That face the fairest ever yet 
That bowed o’er holy cross or bead, 
Or yet was in God’s image set. 

“ I fled,—nay, not so knavish low, 
As you have fancied, did I fly: 

I sought her at this shrine, and I 
Told her full frankly I should go. 

“I stood a giant in my power,— 
And did she question or dispute? 

I stood a savage, selfish brute,— 

She bowed her head, a lily-flower. 

“And when I sudden turned to go, 
And told her I should come no more, 
She bowed her head so low, so low, 

Her vast black hair fell pouring o’er. 

“And that was all; her splendid face 
Was mantled from me, and her night 
Of hair half hid her from my sight, 

As she fell moaning in her place. 


t(jc feoutlj 

“And there, through her dark night 
of hair, 

She sobbed, low moaning in her tears, 
That she would wait, wait all the 
years,— 

Would wait and pray in her despair. 

“ Nay, did not murmur,not deny,— 
She did not cross me one sweet word! 
I tifrned and fled; I thought I heard 
A night-bird’s piercing low death- 
cry!” 

PART II 

How soft the moonlight of my South I 
How sweet the South in soft moonlightl 
I want to kiss her warm, sweet mouth 
As she lies sleeping here tonight . 

How stilll I do not hear a mouse. 
I see some bursting buds appear: 

I hear God in his garden,—hear 
Him trim some flowers for His house. 

I hear some singing stars; the mouth 
Of my vast river sings and smgs, 

And pipes on reeds of pleasant 
things ,— 

Of splendid promise for my South: 

My great South-woman, soon to rise 
And tiptoe up and loose her hair: 
Tiptoe, and take from out the skies 
God’s stars and glorious moon to wearl 

I 

The poet shall create or kill, 

Bid heroes live, bid braggarts die. 

I look against a lurid sky,— 

My silent South lies proudly still. 

/ 




& S>ons of tije g'outfj 


275 


The fading light of burning lands 
Still climbs to God’s house overhead; 
Mute women wring white, withered 
hands; 

Their eyes are red, their skies are red. 

And we still boast our bitter wars! 
Still burn and boast, and boast and lie 
But God’s white finger spins the stars 
In calm dominion of the sky. 

And not one ray of light the less 
Comes down to bid the grasses spring; 
No drop of dew nor anything 
Shall fail for all our bitterness. 

If man grows large, is God the less? 
The moon shall rise and set the same, 
The great sun spill his splendid flame, 
And clothe the world in queenliness. 

Yea, from that very blood-soaked 
sod 

Some large-souled, seeing youth shall 
come 

Some day, and he shall not be dumb 
Before the awful court of God. 

II 

The weary moon had turned away, 
The far North Star was turning pale 
To hear the stranger’s boastful tale 
Of blood and flame that battle-day. 

And yet again the two men glared, 
Close face to face above that tomb; 
Each seemed as jealous of the room 
The other, eager waiting .shared. 


Again the man began to say,— 

As taking up some broken thread, 

As talking to the patient dead,— 

The Creole was as still as they: 

“That night we burned yon grass- 
grown town,— 

The grasses, vines are reaching up; 
The ruins they are reaching down, 

As sun-browned soldiers when they 
sup. 

“ I knew her,—knew her constancy. 
She said this night of every year 
She here would come, and kneeling 
here, 

Would pray the livelong night for me. 

“This praying seems a splendid 
thing! 

It drives old Time the other way; 

It makes him lose all reckoning 
Of years that I have had to pay. 

“This praying seems a splendid 
thing! 

It makes me stronger as she prays— 
But oh, those bitter, bitter days, 
When I became a banished thing! 

“I fled, took ship,—I fled as far 
As far ships drive tow’rd the North 
Star: 

For I did hate the South, the sun 
That made me think what I had done. 

“I could not see a fair palm-tree 
In foreign land, in pleasant place, 
But it would whisper of her face 
And shake its keen, sharp blades at 
me. 



276 3 g>ong of Ifje gboutf) 


“Each black-eyed woman would 
recall 

A lone church-door, a face, a name, 

A coward’s flight, a soldier’s shame: 

I fled from woman’s face, from all. 

“I hugged my gold, my precious 
gold, 

Within my strong, stout buckskin 
vest. 

I wore my bags against my breast 
So close I felt my heart grow cold. 

“I did not like to see it now; 

I did not spend one single piece; 

I traveled, traveled without cease 
As far as Russian ship could plow. 

“And when my own scant hoard 
was gone, 

And I had reached the far North-land, 
I took my two stout bags in hand 
As one pursued, and journeyed on. 

“Ah, I was weary! I grew gray; 

I felt the fast years slip and reel, 

As slip bright beads when maidens 
kneel 

At altars when outdoor is gay. 

“At last I fell prone in the road,— 
Fell fainting with my cursed load. 

A skin-clad Cossack helped me bear 
My bags, nor would one shilling share. 

“He looked at me with proud dis¬ 
dain,— 

He looked at me as if he knew; 

His black eyes burned me thro’ and 
thro’; 

His scorn pierced like a deadly pain. 


“He frightened me with honesty; 
He made me feel so small, so base, 

I fled, as if a fiend kept chase,— 

A fiend that claimed my company! 

“I bore my load alone; I crept 
Far up the steep and icy way; 

And there, before a cross there lay 
A barefoot priest, who bowed and 
wept. 

“I threw my gold right down and 

sped 

Straight on. And oh, my heart was 
light! 

A springtime bird in springtime flight 
Flies scarce more happy than I fled. 

“I felt somehow this monk would 
take 

My gold, my load from off my back; 
Would turn the fiend from off my 
track, 

Would take my gold for sweet Christ’s 
sake! 

“I fled; I did not look behind; 

I fled, fled with the mountain wind. 

At last, far down the mountain’s base 
I found a pleasant resting-place. 

“ I rested there so long, so well, 
More grateful than all tongues can 
tell. 

It was such pleasant thing to hear 
That valley’s voices calm and clear: 

“That valley veiled in mountain 
air, 

With white goats on the hills at morn; 
That valley green with seas of corn, 




21 ^>ong of tfje iboutfj 


With cottage-islands here and there. 

“I watched the mountain girls. 
The hay 

They mowed was not more sweet than 
they; 

They laid brown hands in my white 
hair; 

They marveled at my face of care. 

“ I tried to laugh; I could but weep. 

I made these peasants one request,— 

That I with them might toil or rest, 

And with them sleep the long, last 
sleep, 

“I begged that I might battle 
there, 

In that fair valley-land, for those 

Who gave me cheer, when girt with 
foes, 

And have a country loved as fair. 

“Where is that spot that poets 
name 

Our country? name the hallowed 
land? 

Where is that spot where man must 
stand 

Or fall when girt with sword and 
flame? 

“Where is that one permitted spot? 

Where is the one place man must 
fight? 

Where rests the one God-given right 

To fight, as ever patriots fought? 

“ I say ’tis in that holy house 

Where God first set us down on earth; 

Where mother welcomed us at birth, 


277 

And bared her breasts, a happy 
spouse. 

“The simple plowboy from his 
field 

Looks forth. He sees God’s purple 
wall 

Encircling him. High over all 

The vast sun wheels his shining shield. 

“This King, who makes earth 
what it is,— 

King David bending to his toil! 

O Lord and master of the soil, 

How envied in thy loyal bliss! 

“Long live the land we loved in 
youth, 

That world with blue skies bent 
about, 

Where never entered ugly doubt! 

Long live the simple, homely truth! 

“Can true hearts love some far 
snow-land, 

Some bleak Alaska bought with gold? 

God’s laws are old as love is old; 

And Home is something near at hand. 

“Yea, change yon river’s course; 
estrange 

The seven sweet stars; make hate 
divide 

The full moon from the flowing tide,— 

But this old truth ye cannot change. 

“ I begged a land as begging bread; 

I begged of these brave mountaineers 

To share their sorrows, share their 
tears; 

To weep as they wept with their dead. 




278 HI g>ona of 

“They did consent. The mountain 
town 

Was mine to love, and valley lands. 

That night the barefoot monk came 
down 

And laid my two bags in my hands! 

“Onion! And oh, the load I bore! 

Why, once I dreamed my soul was 
lead; 

Dreamed once it was a body dead! 

It made my cold, hard bosom sore. 

“I dragged that body forth and 
back— 

O conscience, what a baying hound! 

Nor frozen seas nor frosted ground 

Can throw this bloodhound from his 
track. 

“In farthest Russia I lay down, 

A dying man, at last to rest; 

I felt such load upon my breast 

As seamen feel, who, sinking, drown. 

“That night, all chill and desper¬ 
ate, 

I sprang up, for I could not rest; 

I tore the two bags from my breast, 

And dashed them in theburninggrate. 

“I then crept back into my bed; 

I tried, I begged, I prayed to sleep; 

But those red, restless coins would 
keep 

Slow dropping, dropping, and blood- 
red. 

“ I heard them clink, and clink, and 
clink,— 


tfje g>outfj 

They turned, they talked within that 
grate. 

They talked of her; they made me 
think 

Of one who still did pray and wait. 

“And when the bags burned crisp 
and black, 

Two coins did start, roll to the floor,— 
Roll out, roll on, and then roll back, 
As if they needs must journey more. 

“Ah, then I knew nor change nor 

space, 

Nor all the drowning years that rolled 
Could hide from me her haunting 
face, 

Nor still that red-tongued, talking 
gold! 

“Again I sprang forth frommybed! 
I shook as in an ague fit; 

I clutched that red gold, burning red, 
I clutched as if to strangle it. 

“I clutched it up—you hear me, 
boy?— 

I clutched it up with joyful tears! 

I clutched it close with such wild joy 
I had not felt for years and years! 

“Such joy! for I should now re¬ 
trace 

My steps, should see my land, her 
face; 

Bring back her gold this battle-day, 
And see her, hear her, hear her pray! 

“I brought it back—you hear me, 
boy? 

I clutch it, hold it, hold it now; 



£s>ong of tfje H>outl) 


279 


Red gold, bright gold that giveth joy 
To all, and anywhere or how; 

“That giveth joy to all but me,— 
To all but me, yet soon to all. 

It burns my hands, it burns! but she 
Shall ope my hands and let it fall. 

“For oh, I have a willing hand 
To give these bags of gold; to see 
Her smile as once she smiled on me 
Here in this pleasant warm palm- 
land ” 

He ceased, he thrust each hard- 
clenched fist,— 

He threw his gold hard forth again, 

As one impelled by some mad pain 
He would not or could not resist. 

The Creole, scorning, turned away, 
As if he turned from that lost thief,— 
The one who died without belief 
That dark, dread crucifixion day. 

Ill 

Believe in man nor turn away. 

Lo! man advances year by year; 
Time bears him upward, and his 
sphere 

Of life must broaden day by day. 

Believe in man with large belief; 
The garnered grain each harvest¬ 
time 

Hath promise, roundness, and full 
prime 

For all the empty chaff and sheaf. 


Believe in man with brave belief; 
Truth keeps the bottom of her well; 
And when the thief peeps down, the 
thief 

Peeps back at him perpetual. 

Faint not that this or that man fell; 
For one that falls a thousand rise 
To lift white Progress to the skies: 
Truth keeps the bottom of her well. 

Fear not for man, nor cease to delve 
For cool, sweet truth, with large 
belief. 

Lo! Christ himself chose only twelve, 
Yet one of these turned out a thief. 

IV 

Down through the dark magnolia 
leaves, 

Where climbs the rose of Cherokee 
Against the orange-blossomed tree, 

A loom of mom-light weaves and 
weaves,— 

A loom of mom-light, weaving 
clothes 

From snow-white rose of Cherokee, 
And bridal blooms of orange-tree, 

For fairy folk housed in red rose. 

Down through the mournful myrtle 
crape, 

Thro’ moving moss, thro’ ghostly 
gloom, 

A long, white morn-beam takes a 
shape 

Above a nameless, lowly tomb; 



280 3 £S>ons of 

A long white finger through the 
gloom 

Of grasses gathered round about,— 

As God’s white finger pointing out 
A name upon that nameless tomb. 

V 

Her white face bowed in her black 
hair, 

The maiden prays so still within 
That you might hear a falling pin,— 
Aye, hear her white, unuttered 
prayer. 

The moon has grown disconsolate, 
Has turned her down her walk of 
stars: 

Why, she is shuttling up her bars, 

As maidens shut a lover’s gate. 

The moon has grown disconsolate; 
She will no longer watch and wait. 

But two men wait; and two men will 
Wait on till full morn, mute and still. 

Still wait and walk among the trees 
Quite careless if the moon may keep 
Her walk along her starry steep 
Or drown her in the Southern seas. 

They know no moon, or set or rise 
Of sun, or anything to light 
The earth or skies, save her dark eyes, 
This praying, waking, watching night. 

They move among the tombs apart, 
Their eyes turn ever to that door; 
They know the worn walks there by 
heart— 

They turn and walk them o’er and 
o’er. 


tfje H>outfj 

They are not wide, these little 
walks 

For dead folk by this crescent town: 
They lie right close when they lie 
down, 

As if they kept up quiet talks. 

VI 

The two men keep their paths 
apart; 

But more and more begins to stoop 
The man with gold, as droop and 
droop 

Tall plants with something at their 
heart. 

Now once again, with eager zest, 
He offers gold with silent speech; 

The other will not walk in reach, 

But walks around, as round a pest. 

His dark eyes sweep the scene 
around, 

His young face drinks the fragrant 
air, 

His dark eyes journey everywhere,— 
The other’s cleave unto the ground. 

It is a weary walk for him, 

For oh, he bears such weary load! 

He does not like that narrow road 
Between the dead—it is so dim: 

It is so dark, that narrow place, 
Where graves lie thick, like yellow 
leaves: 

Give us the light of Christ and 
grace; 

Give light to garner in the sheaves. 



9 ikmg of tfje H>outfj 


281 


Give light of love; for goldiscold,— 
Aye, gold is cruel as a crime; 

It gives no light at such sad time 
As when man’s feet wax weak and old. 

Aye, gold is heavy, hard, and cold! 
And have I said this thing before? 
Well, I will say it o’er and o’er, 

’T were need be said ten thousand 
fold. 

“Give us this day our daily 
bread,”— 

Get this of God; then all the rest 
Is housed in thine own earnest breast, 
If you but lift an honest head. 

VII 

Oh, I have seen men tall and fair, 
Stoop down their manhood with 
disgust,— 

Stoop down God’s image to the dust, 
To get a load of gold to bear: 

Have seen men selling day by day 
The glance of manhood that God 
gave: 

To sell God’s image, as a slave 
Might sell some little pot of clay! 

Behold! here in this green grave¬ 
yard 

A man with gold enough to fill 
A coffin, as a miller’s till; 

And yet his path is hard, so hard! 

His feet keep sinking in the sand, 
And now so near an opened grave! 
He seems to hear the solemn wave 
Of dread oblivion at hand. 


The sands, they grumble so, it 
seems 

As if he walks some shelving brink; 

He tries to stop, he tries to think, 

He tries to make believe he dreams: 

Why, he was free to leave the 
land,— 

The silver moon was white as dawn; 

Why, he had gold in either hand, 

Had silver ways to walk upon. 

And who should chide, or bid him 
stay? 

Or taunt, or threat, or bid him fly? 

“The world’s for sale,” I hear men 
say, 

And yet this man had gold to buy. 

Buy what? Buy rest? He could 
not rest! 

Buy gentle sleep? He could not 
sleep, 

Though all these graves were wide 
and deep 

As their wide mouths with the 
request. 

Buy Love, buy faith, buy snow- 
white truth? 

Buy moonlight, sunlight, present, 
past? 

Buy but one brimful cup of youth 

That true souls drink of to the last? 

O God! ’twas pitiful to see 

This miser so forlorn and old! 

O God! how poor a man may be 

With nothing in this world but 
gold! 




282 


3 ^>ong of tfje g>outf) 


VIII 

The broad magnolia’s blooms were 
white; 

Her blooms were large, as if the moon 
Quite lost her way that dreamful 
night, 

And lodged to wait the afternoon. 

Oh, vast white blossoms, breathing 
love! 

White bosom of my lady dead, 

In your white heaven overhead 
I look, and learn to look above. 

IX 

The dew-wet roses wept; their 
eyes 

All dew, their breath as sweet as 
prayer. 

And as they wept, the dead down 
there 

Did feel their tears and hear their 
sighs. 

The grass uprose, as if afraid 
Some stranger foot might press too 
near; 

Its every blade was like a spear, 

Its every spear a living blade. 

The grass above that nameless 
tomb 

Stood all arrayed, as if afraid 
Some weary pilgrim, seeking room 
And rest, might lay where she was laid. 

X 

’T was morn, and yet it was not 
morn; 


’T was morn in heaven, not on earth: 
A star was singing of a birth,— 

Just saying that a day was born. 

The marsh hard by that bound the 
lake,— 

The great stork sea-lake, Ponchar- 
train, 

Shut off from sultry Cuban main,— 
Drew up its legs, as half awake: 

Drew long, thin legs, stork-legs 
that steep 

In slime where alligators creep,— 
Drew long, green legs that stir the 
grass, 

As when the lost, lorn night winds 

pass. 

Then from the marsh came croak- 
ings low, 

Then louder croaked some sea-marsh 
beast; 

Then, far awa)' against the east, 

God’s rose of morn began to grow. 

From out the marsh against that 

east, 

A ghostly moss-swept cypress stood; 
With ragged arms, above the wood 
It rose, a God-forsaken beast. 

It seemed so frightened where it 
rose! 

The moss-hung thing, it seemed to 
wave 

The worn-out garments of a grave,— 
To wave and wave its old grave- 
clothes. 




& gbong of 

Close by, a cow rose up and lowed 
From out a palm-thatched milking- 
shed; 

A black boy on the river road 
Fled sudden, as the night had fled: 

A nude black boy,—a bit of night 
That had been broken off and lost 
From flying night, the time it crossed 
The soundless river in its flight. 

A bit of darkness, following 
The sable night on sable wing,— 

A bit of darkness, dumb with fear, 
Because that nameless tomb was 
near. 

Then holy bells came pealing out; 
Then steamboats blew, then horses 
neighed; 

Then smoke from hamlets round 
about 

Crept out, as if no more afraid. 

Then shrill cocks here, and shrill 
cocks there, 

Stretched glossy necks and filled the 
air;— 

How many cocks it takes to make 
A country morning well awake! 

Then many boughs, with many 
birds,— 

Young boughs in green, old boughs in 
gray; 

These birds had very much to say, 

In their soft, sweet, familiar words. 

And all seemed sudden glad; the 
gloom 

Forgot the church, forgot the tomb; 


tfje ls»outf) 283 

And yet, like monks with cross and 
bead, 

The myrtles leaned to read and read. 

And oh, the fragrance of the sod! 
And oh, the perfume of the air! 

The sweetness, sweetness every¬ 
where, 

That rose like incense up to God! 

I like a cow’s breath in sweet 
spring; 

I like the breath of babes new-born; 
A maid’s breath is a pleasant thing,— 
But oh, the breath of sudden morn!— 

Of sudden mom, when every pore 
Of Mother Earth is pulsing fast 
With life, and life seems spilling o’er 
With love, with love too sweet to last: 

Of sudden morn beneath the sun, 
By God’s great river wrapped in gray, 
That for a space forgets to run, 

And hides his face, as if to pray. 

XI 

The black-eyed Creole kept his 
eyes 

Turned to the door, as eyes might 
turn 

To see the holy embers bum 
Some sin away at sacrifice. 

Full dawn! but yet he knew no 
dawn, 

Nor song of bird, nor bird on wing, 
Nor breath of rose, nor anything 
Her fair face lifted not upon. 



284 


gf #>ong of tfje g>outf) 


And yet he taller stood with morn; 
His bright eyes, brighter than before, 
Burned fast against that favored 
door, 

His proud lips lifting still with 
scorn,— 

With lofty, silent scorn for one 
Who all night long had plead and 
plead, 

With none to witness but the dead 
How he for gold had been undone. 

O ye who feed a greed for gold 
And barter truth, and trade sweet 
youth 

For cold, hard gold, behold, behold! 
Behold this man! behold this truth! 

Why what is there in all God’s plan 
Of vast creation, high or low, 

By sea or land, by sun or snow, 

So mean, so miserly as man? 

Lo, earth and heaven all let go 
Their garnered riches, year by year! 
The treasures of the trackless snow, 
Ah, has thou seen how very dear? 

The wide earth gives, gives golden 
grain, 

Gives fruits of gold, gives all, gives 
all! 

Hold forth your hand, and these shall 
fall 

In your full palm as free as rain. 

Yea, earth is generous. The trees 
Strip nude as birth-time without fear; 
And their reward is year by year 
To feel their fullness but increase. 


The law of Nature is to give, 

To give, to give! and to rejoice 
In giving with a generous voice, 

And so trust God and truly live. 

But see this miser at the last,— 
This man who loved, who worshipped 
gold, 

Who grasped gold with such eager 
hold, 

He fain must hold forever fast: 

As if to hold what God lets go; 

As if to hold, while all around 
Lets go and drops upon the ground 
All things as generous as snow. 

Let go your hold! let go or die! 

Let go poor soul! Do not refuse 
Till death comes by and shakes you 
loose, 

And sends you shamed to hell for aye! 

What if the sun should keep his 
gold? 

The rich moon lock her silver up? 
What if the gold-clad buttercup 
Became such miser, mean and old? 

Ah, me! the coffins are so true 
In all accounts, the shrouds so thin 
That down there you might sew and 
sew, 

Nor ever sew one pocket in. 

And all that you can hold of lands 
Down there, below the grass, down 
there, 

Will only be that little share 

You hold in your two dust-full hands. 




XII 


& H>ong of 


She comes! she comes! The stony 
floor 

Speaks out! And now the rusty door 
At last has just one word this day, 
With mute, religious lips, to say. 

She comes! she comes! And lo, 
her face 

Is upward, radiant, fair as prayer! 

So pure here in this holy place, 
Where holy peace is everywhere. 

Her upraised face, her face of light 
And loveliness, from duty done, 

Is like a rising orient sun 

That pushes back the brow of night. 

• •••«•« 

How brave, how beautiful is truth! 
Good deeds untold are like to this. 
But fairest of all fair things is 
A pious maiden in her youth: 

A pious maiden as she stands 
Just on the threshold of the years 
That throb and pulse with hopes and 
fears, 

And reaches God her helpless hands. 

How fair is she! How fond is she! 
Her foot upon the threshold there. 
Her breath is as a blossomed tree,— 
This maiden mantled in her hair! 

Her hair, her black abundant hair, 
Where night inhabited, all night 
And all this day, will not take flight, 
But finds content and houses there. 


tlje i§>outf) 285 

Her hands are clasped, her two 
small hands: 

They hold the holy book of prayer 
Just as she steps the threshold there, 
Clasped downward where she silent 
stands. 

XIII 

Once more she lifts her lowly face, 
And slowly lifts her large, dark eyes 
Of wonder, and in still surprise 
She looks full forward in her place. 

She looks full forward on the air 
Above the tomb, and yet below 
The fruits of gold, the blooms of snow, 
As looking—looking anywhere. 

She feels—she knows not what she 
feels: 

It is not terror, is not fear. 

But there is something that reveals 
A presence that is near and dear. 

She does not let her eyes fall down, 
They lift against the far profound: 
Against the blue above the town 
Two wide-winged vultures circle 
round. 

Two brown birds swim above the 
sea,— 

Her large eyes swim as dreamily, 

And follow far, and follow high, 

Two circling black specks in the sky. 

One forward step—the closing door 
Creaks out, as frightened or in pain; 
Her eyes are on the ground again— 
Two men are standing close before. 




286 H gbong of 

“ My love/' sighs one, “my life, my 
all!” 

Her lifted foot across the sill 
Sinks down,—and all things are so 
still 

You hear the orange-blossoms fall. 

But fear comes not where duty is, 
And purity is peace and rest; 

Her cross is close upon her breast, 

Her two hands clasp hard hold of this. 

Her two hands clasp cross, book, 
and she 

Is strong in tranquil purity,— 

Aye, strong as Samson when he laid 
His two hands forth and bowed and 
prayed. 

One at her left, one at her right, 
And she betweeen the steps upon,— 

I can but see that Syrian night, 

The women there at early dawn. 

XIV 

The sky is like an opal sea, 

The air is like the breath of kine; 

But oh, her face is white, and she 
Leans faint to see a lifted sign,— 

To see two hands lift up and 
wave,— 

To see a face so white with woe, 

So ghastly, hollow, white as though 
It had that moment left the grave. 

Her sweet face at that ghostly sign, 
Her fair face in her weight of hair, 

Is like a white dove drowning there,— 
A white dove drowned in Tuscan 
wine. 


tfje g>outf) 

He tries to stand, to stand erect; 
'T is gold, 't is gold that holds him 
down! 

And soul and body both must 
drown,— 

Two millstones tied about his neck. 

Now once again his piteous face 
Is raised to her face reaching there; 
He prays such piteous silent prayer, 
As prays a dying man for grace. 

It is not good to see him strain 
To lift his hands, to gasp, to try 
To speak. His parched lips are so 
dry 

Their sight is as a living pain, 

I think that rich man down in hell 
Some like this old man with his 
gold 

To gasp and gasp perpetual, 

Like to this minute I have told. 

* 

XV 

At last the miser cries his pain,— 
A shrill, wild cry, as if a grave 
Just op’d its stony lips and gave 
One sentence forth, then closed again. 

“ ’T was twenty years last night, 
last night! ” 

His lips still moved, but not to speak; 
His outstretched hands, so trembling 

weak, 

Were beggar’s hands in sorry plight. 

His face upturned to hers; his lips 
Kept talking on, but gave no sound; 
His feet were cloven to the ground, 
Like iron hooks his finger tips. 




Baton at S>an Biego 


“Aye, twenty years,” she sadly 
sighed; 

“ I promised mother every year, 

That I would pray for father here, 
As she still prayed the night she 
died: 

“To pray as she prayed, fervently, 
As she had promised she would pray 
The sad night that he turned away, 
For him, wherever he might be.” 

Then she was still; then sudden she 
Let fall her eyes, and so outspake, 

As if her very heart would break, 

Her proud lips trembling piteously: 

“And whether he comes soon or 
late 

To kneel beside this nameless grave, 
May God forgive my father’s hate 
As I forgive, as she forgave! ” 

He saw the stone; he understood, 
With that quick knowledge that will 
come 

DAWN AT 

My city sits amid her palms; 

The perfume of her twilight breath 
Is something as the sacred balms 
That bound Sweet Jesus after death, 
Such soft, warm twilight sense as lies 
Against the gates of Paradise. 

Such prayerful palms, wide palms 
upreached! 

This sea mist is as incense smoke, 

Yon mission walls a sermon preached — 


287 

Most quick when men are made most 
dumb 

With terror that stops still the blood. 

And then a blindness slowly fell 
On soul and body; but his hands 
Held tight his bags, two iron bands, 
As if to bear them into hell. 

He sank upon the nameless stone 
With oh! such sad, such piteous moan 
As never man might seek to know 
From man’s most unforgiving foe. 

He sighed at last, so long, so deep, 
As one heart breaking in one’s 
sleep,— 

One long, last, weary, willing sigh, 
As if it were a grace to die. 

And then his hands, like loosened 
bands 

Hung down, hung down, on either 
side; 

His hands hung down, hung open 
wide: 

Wide empty hung the dead man’s 
hands. 

SAN DIEGO 

White lily with a heart of oak. 

And O, this twilight! 0 the grace 
Of twilight on yon lifted face! 

I love you, twilight,—love with love 
So loyal, loving fond that I 
When folding these worn hands to 
die, 

Shall pray God lead me not above, 

But leave me, twilight, sad and true, 

To walk this lonesome world with you. 





288 


©aton at i^an ©tego 


Yea, God knows I have walked with 
night; 

I have not seen, I have not known 
Such light as beats upon His throne. 

I know I could not bear such light; 
Therefore, I beg, sad sister true, 

To share your shadow-world with you. 

1 love you, love you, maid of night, 
Your perfumed breath, your dreamful 
eyes, 

Your holy silences, your sighs 
Of mateless longing; your delight 
When night says, Hang on yon moon's 
horn 

Your russet gown, and rest till morn. 

The sun is dying; space and room, 
Serenity, vast sense of rest, 

Lie bosomed in the orange west 
Of orient waters. Hear the boom 
Of long, strong billows; wave on 
wave, 

Like funeral guns above a grave. 

Now night folds all; no sign or 
word; 

But still that rocking of the deep— 
Sweet mother, rock the world to sleep: 
Still rock and rock; as I have heard 
Sweet mother gently rock and rock 
The while she folds the little frock. 


Broad mesa, brown, bare moun¬ 
tains, brown, 

Bowed sky of brown, that erst was 
blue; 

Dark, earth-brown curtains coming 
down— 

Earth-brown, that all hues melt into; 


Brown twilight, born of light and 

shade; 

Of night that came, of light that 
passed. . . . 

How like some lorn, majestic maid 
That wares not whither way at last ! 

Now perfumed Night, sad-faced 
and far, 

Walks up the world in somber brown. 
Now suddenly a loosened star 
Lets all her golden hair fall down— 
And Night is dead Day’s coffin-lid, 
With stars of gold shot through his 
pall. . . . 

I hear the chorus, katydid; 

A katydid, and that is all. 

Some star-tipt candles foot and 
head; 

Some perfumes of the perfumed sea; 
And now above the coffined dead 
Dusk draws great curtains lovingly; 
While far o’er all, so dreamful far, 
God’s Southern Cross by faith is seen 
Tipt by one single blazing star, 

With spaces infinite between. 


Come, love His twilight, the per¬ 
fume 

Of God’s great trailing garment’s 
hem; 

The sense of rest, the sense of room, 
The garnered goodness of the day, 
The twelve plucked hours of His tree, 
When all the world has gone its way 
And left perfection quite to me 
And Him who, loving, fashioned 
them. 



Baton at 

I know not why that wealth and 
pride 

Win not my heart or w r oo my tale. 

I only know I know them not; 

I only know to cast my lot 
Where love walks noiselessly with 
night 

And patient nature; my delight 
The wild rose of the mountain side, 
The lowly lily of the vale; 

To live not asking, just to live; 

To live not begging, just to be; 

To breathe God’s presence in the 
dusk 

That drives out loud, assertive light— 
To never ask, but ever give; 

To love my noiseless mother, Night; 
Her vast hair moist with smell of 
musk, 

Her breath sweet with eternity. 


I 

A hermit’s path, a mountain's 
perch, 

A sandaled monk, a dying man— 

A far-off, low, adobe church, 

Below the hermit’s orange-trees 
That cap the clouds above the seas, 
So far, its spire seems but a span. 


A low-voiced dove! The dying 
Don 

Put back the cross and sat dark- 
browed 

And sullen, as a dove flew out 
The bough, and circling round about, 


H>an Btego 289 

Was bathed and gathered in a cloud, 
That, like some ship, sailed on and on. 

But let the gray monk tell the tale; 
And tell it just as told to me. 

This Don was chiefest of the vale 
That banks by San Diego’s sea, 

And who so just, so generous, 

As he who now lay dying thus? 

But wrong, such shameless Saxon 
wrong, 

Had crushed his heart, had made him 
hate 

The sight, the very sound of man. 

He loved thelonely wood-dove’s song; 
He loved it as his living mate. 

And lo! the good monk laid a ban 
And penance of continual prayer— 
But list, the living, dying there! 

For now the end was, and he lay 
As day lies banked against the 
night— 

As lies some bark at close of day 
To wait the dew-bom breath of night; 
To wait the ebb of tide, to wait 
The swift plunge through the Golden 
Gate: 

The plunge from bay to boundless 
sea— 

From life through narrow straits of 
night, 

From time to bright eternity— 

To everlasting walks of light. 

Some like as when you sudden blow 
Your candle out and turn you so 
To sleep unto the open day: 

And thus the priest did pleading say: 


19 




290 


Baton at S>an Biego 


“You fled my flock, and sought this 
steep 

And stony, star-lit, lonely height, 
Where weird and unnamed creatures 
keep 

To hold strange thought with things 
of night 

Long, long ago. But now at last 
Your life sinks surely to the past. 
Lay hold, lay hold, the cross I bring, 
Where all God’s goodly creatures 
cling. 

“Yea! You are good. Dark- 
browed and low 

Beneath your shaggy brows you look 
On me, as you would read a book: 
And darker still your dark brows grow 
As I lift up the cross to pray, 

And plead with you to walk its way. 

“Yea, you are good! There is not 
one, 

From Tia Juana to the reach 
And bound of gray Pacific Beach, 
From Coronado’s palm-set isle 
And palm-hung pathways, mile on 
mile, 

But speaks you, Senor, good and true. 
But oh, my silent, dying son! 

The cross alone can speak for you 
When all is said and all is done. 

“Come! Turn your dim, dark 
eyes to me, 

Have faith and help me plant this 
cross 

Beyond where blackest billows toss, 
As you would plant some pleasant 
tree: 

Some fruitful orange-tree, and know 


That it shall surely grow and grow, 
As your own orange-trees have grown, 
And be, as they, your very own. 

“You smile at last, and pleasantly: 
You love your laden orange-trees 
Set high above your silver seas 
With your own honest hand; each 
tree 

A date, a day, a part, indeed, 

Of your own life, and walk, and 
creed. 

“You love your steeps, your star- 
set blue: 

You watch yon billows flash, and 

toss, 

And leap, and curve, in merry rout, 
You love to hear them laugh and 
shout— 

Men say you hear them talk to you; 
Men say you sit and look and look, 
As one who reads some holy book— 
My son, come, look upon the cross? 

“Come, see me plant amid your 

trees 

My cross, that you may see and know 
’T will surely grow, and grow, and 
grow, 

As grows some trusted little seed; 

As grows some secret, small good 
deed; 

The while you gaze upon your 
seas. . . . 

Sweet Christ, now let it grow, and 
bear 

Fair fruit, as your own fruit is fair. 

“Aye! ever from the first I knew, 
And marked its flavor, freshness, hue 



Baton at H>an Biego 


291 


The gold of sunset and the gold 
Of morn, in each rich orange rolled. 

“ I mind me now, ’t was long since, 
friend, 

When first I climbed your path alone, 
A savage path of brush and stone, 
And rattling serpents without end. 

“Yea, years ago, when blood and 
life 

Ran swift, and your sweet, faithful 
wife— 

What! tears at last; hot, piteous tears 
That through your bony fingers creep 
The while you bend your face, and 
weep 

As if your heart of hearts would 
break— 

As if these tears were your heart’s 
blood, 

A pent-up, sudden, bursting flood— 
Look on the cross, for Jesus’ sake.” 

II 

'T was night, and still it seemed not 
night. 

Yet, far down in the canon deep, 
Where night had housed all day, to 
keep 

Companion with the wolf, you 
might 

Have hewn a statue out of night. 

The shrill coyote loosed his tongue 
Deep in the dark arroyo’s bed; 

And bat and owl above his head 
From out their gloomy caverns 
swung: 


A swoop of wings, a cat-like call, 

A crackle sharp of chaparral! 

Then sudden, fitful winds sprang 
out, 

And swept the mesa like a broom; 
Wild, saucy winds that sang of room! 
That leapt the canon with a shout 
From dusty throats, audaciously 
And headlong tore into the sea, 

As tore the swine with lifted snout. 

Some birds came, went, then came 
again 

From out the hermit’s wood-hung 
hill; 

Came swift, and arrow-like, and still, 
As you have seen birds, when the 
rain— 

The great, big, high-born rain, leapt 
white 

And sudden from a cloud like night. 

And then a dove, dear, nun-like 
dove, 

With eyes all tenderness, with eyes 
So loving, longing, full of love, 

That when she reached her slender 
throat 

And sang one low, soft, sweetest note, 
Just one, so faint, so far, so near, 

You could have wept with joy to hear. 

The old man, as if he had slept, 
Raised quick his head, then bowed 
and wept 

For joy, to hear once more her voice. 
With childish joy he did rejoice; 

As one will joy to surely learn 
His dear, dead love is living still; 



292 


Baton at £?an Bicgo 


As one will joy to know, in turn, 

He, too, is loved with love to kill. 

He put a hand forth, let it fall 

And feebly close; and that was all. 

And then he turned his tearful eyes 

To meet the priest’s, and spake this 
wise:— 

Now mind, I say, not one more 
word 

That livelong night of nights was 
heard 

By monk or man, from dusk till dawn; 

And yet that man spake on and on. 

Why, know you not, soul speaks to 
soul? 

I say the use of words shall pass. 

Words are but fragments of the glass; 

But silence is the perfect whole. 

And thus the old man, bowed and 
wan, 

And broken in his body, spake— 

Spake youthful, ardent, on and on, 

As dear love speaks for dear love’s 
sake. 

“You spake of her, my wife; be¬ 
hold! 

Behold my faithful, constant love! 

Nay, nay, you shall not doubt my 
dove, 

Perched there above your cross of 
gold! 

“Yea, you have books, I know, to 
tell 

Of far, fair heaven; but no hell 


To her had been so terrible 
As all sweet heaven, with its gold 
And jasper gates, and great white 
throne, 

Had she been banished hence alone. 

“ I say, not God himself could keep, 
Beyond the stars, beneath the deep, 
Or ’mid the stars, or ’mid the sea, 
Her soul from my soul one brief day, 
But she would find some pretty way 
To come and still companion me. 

“And say, where bide your souls, 
good priest? 

Lies heaven west, lies heaven east? 
Let us be frank, let us be fair; 

Where is your heaven, good priest, 
where? 

“Is there not room, is there not 
place 

In all those boundless realms of space? 
Is there not room in this sweet air, 
Room ’mid my trees, room anywhere, 
For souls that love us thus so well, 
And love so well this beauteous world, 
But that they must be headlong 
hurled 

Down, down, to undiscovered hell? 

“Good priest, we questioned not 
one word 

Of all the holy things we heard 
Down in your pleasant town of palms 
Long, long ago—sweet chants, sweet 
psalms, 

Sweet incense, and the solemn rite 
Above the dear, believing dead. 

Nor do I question here tonight 
One gentle word you may have said. 




Baton at £&an Bit'go 


293 


I would not doubt, for one brief hour, 
Your word, your creed, your priestly 
power, 

Your purity, unselfish zeal, 

But there be fears I scorn to feel! 

“Let those who will, seek realms 
above, 

Remote from all that heart can love, 
In their ignoble dread of hell. 

Give all, good priest, in charity; 

Give heaven to all, if this may be, 
And count it well, and very well. 

“ But I—I could not leave this spot 
Where she is waiting by my side. 
Forgive me, priest; it is not pride; 
There is no God where she is not! 

“ You did not know her well. Her 
creed 

Was yours; my faith it was the same, 
My faith was fair, my lands were 
broad. 

Far down where yonder palm-trees 
rise 

We two together worshiped God 
From childhood. And we grew in 
deed, 

Devout in heart as well as name, 
And loved our palm-set paradise. 

“We loved, we loved all things on 
earth, 

However mean or miserable. 

We knew no thing that had not worth, 
And learned to know no need of hell. 

“Indeed, good priest, so much, 
indeed, 

We found to do, we saw to love, 


We did not always look above 
As is commanded in your creed, 

But kept in heart one chiefest care, 
To make this fair world still more fair. 

“ ’T was then that meek, pale 
Saxon came; 

With soulless gray and greedy eyes, 
A snake’s eyes, cunning, cold and wise, 
And I—I could not fight, or fly 
His crafty wiles at all; and I— 
Enough, enough! I signed my name. 

“It was not loss of pleasure, place, 
Broad lands, or the serene delight 
Of doing good, that made long night 
O’er all the sunlight of her face. 

But there be little things that feed 
A woman’s sweetness, day by day, 
That strong men miss not, do not 
need, 

But, shorn of all can go their way 
To battle, and but stronger grow, 

As grow great waves that gather so. 

“She missed the music, missed the 
song, 

The pleasant speech of courteous 
men, 

Who came and went, a comely 
throng, 

Before her open window, when 
The sea sang with us, and we two 
Had heartfelt homage, warm and 
true. 

“She missed the restfulness, the 
rest 

Of dulcet silence, the delight 
Of singing silence, when the town 
Put on its twilight robes of brown; 



294 


Baton at H>an Biego 


When twilight wrapped herself in 
night 

And couched against the curtained 
west. 

“But not one murmur, not one 
word 

From her sweet baby lips was heard. 
She only knew I could not bear 
To see sweet San Diego town, 

Her palm set lanes, her pleasant 
square, 

Her people passing up and down, 
Without black hate, and deadly hate 
For him who housed within our gate, 
And so, she gently led my feet 
Aside to this high, wild retreat. 

“How pale she grew, how piteous 
pale 

The while I wrought, and ceaseless 
wrought 

To keep my soul from bitter thought, 
And build me here above the vale. 
Ah me! my selfish, Spanish pride! 
Enough of pride, enough of hate, 
Enough of her sad, piteous fate: 

She died: right here she sank and 
died. 

“She died, and with her latest 
breath 

Did promise to return to me, 

As turns a dove unto her tree 
To find her mate at night and rest; 
Died, clinging close against my 
breast; 

Died, saying she would surely rise 
So soon as God had loosed her eyes 
From the strange wonderment of 
death. 


“ How beautiful is death! and how 
Surpassing good, and true, and fair! 
How just is death, how gently just, 
To lay his sword against the thread 
Of life when life is surely dead 
And loose the sweet soul from the 
dust! 

I laid her in my lorn despair 
Beneath that dove, that orange- 
bough— 

How strange your cross should stand 
just there! 

“And then I waited hours, days: 
Those bitter days, they were as years. 
My soul groped through the darkest 
ways; 

I scarce could see God’s face for tears. 


“I clutched my knife, and I crept 
down, 

A wolf, to San Diego town. 

On, on, amid my palms once more, 

Keen knife in hand, I crept that night. 

I passed the gate, then fled in fright; 

Black crape hung fluttered from the 
door! 

“I climbed back here, with heart 
of stone: 

I heard next morn one sweetest tone; 

Looked up, and lo! there on that 
bough 

She perched, as she sits perching now. 


“I heard the bells peal from my 
height, 

Peal pompously, peal piously; 



Baton at 

Saw sable hearse, in plumes of night 
With not one thought of hate in me. 

“I watched the long train winding 
by, 

A mournful, melancholy lie— 

A sable, solemn, mourning mile— 
And only pitied him the while. 

For she, she sang that whole day- 
through : 

Sad-voiced, as if she pitied, too. 

“They said, ‘ His work is done, and 
well.’ 

They laid his body in a tomb 
Of massive splendor. It lies there 
In all its stolen pomp and gloom— 
But list! his soul—his soul is where? 
In hell! In hell! But where is hell? 

“Hear me but this. Year after 
year 

She trained my eye, she trained my 
ear; 

No book to blind my eyes, or ought 
To prate of hell, when hell is not. 

I came to know at last, and well, 
Such things as never book can tell. 

“And where was that poor, dismal 
soul 

Ye priests had sent to paradise? 

I heard the long years roll and roll, 
As rolls the sea. My once dimmed 
eyes 

Grew keen as long, sharp shafts of 
light. 

With eager eyes and reaching face 
1 searched the stars night after night; 
That dismal soul was not in space! 


H>an Btego 295 

“Meanwhile my green trees grew 
and grew; 

And sad or glad, this much I knew, 

It were no sin to make more fair 
One spot on earth, to toil and share 
With man, or beast, or bird; while 
she 

Still sang her soft, sweet melody. 

“One day, a perfumed day in 
white— 

Such restful, fresh, and friendlike 
day,—- 

Fair Mexico a mirage lay 
Far-lifted in a sea of light— 

Soft, purple light, so far away. 

I turned yon pleasant pathway down, 
And sauntered leisurely tow’rd town. 

“I heard my dear love call and coo, 
And knew that she was happy, too, 
In her sad, sweet, and patient pain 
Of waiting till I came again. 

“Aye, I was glad, quite glad at last; 
Not glad as I had been when she 
Walked with me by yon palm-set sea, 
But sadly and serenely glad: 

As though ’t were twilight like, as 
though 

You knew, and yet you did not know 
That sadness, most supremely sad 
Should lay upon you like a pall, 

And would not, could not pass away 
Till you should pass; till perfect day 
Dawns sudden on you, and the call 
Of birds awakens you to morn— 

A babe new-born; a soul new-born. 

“Good priest, what are the birds 
for? Priest, 





296 


Baton at 

Build ye your heaven west or east? 
Above, below, or anywhere? 

I only ask, I only say 

She sits there, waiting for the day, 

The fair, full day to guide me there. 

"What, he? That creature? Ah, 
quite true! 

I wander much, I weary you: 

I beg your pardon, gentle priest. 
Returning up the stone-strewn steep, 
Down in yon jungle, dank and deep, 
Where toads and venomed reptiles 
, creep, 

There, there, I saw that hideous 
beast! 

"Aye, there! coiled there beside my 
road, 

Close coiled behind a monstrous toad, 
A huge flat-bellied reptile hid! 

His tongue leapt red as flame; his 
eyes, 

His eyes were burning hells of lies— 
His head was like a coffin's lid: 

"Saint George! Saint George! I 
gasped for breath. 

The beast, tight coiled, swift, sud¬ 
den sprang 

High in the air, and, rattling, sang 
His hateful, hissing song of death! 

"My eyes met his. He shrank, he 
fell, 

Fell sullenly and slow. The swell 
Of braided, brassy neck forgot 
Its poise, and every venomed spot 
Lost luster, and the coffin head 
Cowed level with the toad, and lay 


i?an Btego 

Low, quivering with hate and dread: 
The while I kept my upward way. 

“What! Should have killed him? 
Nay, good priest. 

I know not what or where’s your hell. 
But be it west or be it east, 

His hell is there! and that is well! 

"Nay, do not, do not question me; 
I could not tell you why I know; 

I only know that this is so, 

As sure as God is equity. 

"Good priest, forgive me, and 
good-by, 

The stars slow gather to their fold; 

I see God’s garment hem of gold 
Against the far, faint morning sky. 

"Good, holy priest, your God is 
where? 

You come to me with book and creed; 
I cannot read your book; I read 
Yon boundless, open book of air. 
What time, or way, or place I look, 

I see God in His garden walk; 

I hear Him through the thunders talk, 
As once He talked, with burning 
tongue, 

To Moses, when the world was young; 
And, priest, what more is in your 
book? 

"Behold! the Holy Grail is found, 
Found in each poppy’s cup of gold; 
And God walks with us as of old. 
Behold! the burning bush still burns 
For man, whichever way he turns; 
And all God’s earth is holy ground. 




Baton at g?an Biego 


297 


“And—and—good priest, bend low 
your head, 

The sands are crumbling where I 
tread, 

Beside the shoreless, soundless sea. 

Good priest, you came to pray, you 
said; 

And now, what would you have of 
me?” 


The good priest gently raised his 
head, 

Then bowed it low and softly said: 

“Your blessing, son, despite the ban.” 

He fell before the dying man; 

And when he raised his face from 
prayer, 

Sweet Dawn, and two sweet doves 
were there. 












SONGS OF THE HEBREW CHILDREN 


(Olive Leaves) 


299 


\ 



O BOY AT PEACE 


O boy at peace upon tne Dela¬ 
ware! 

O brother mine, that fell in battle 
front 

Of life, so braver, nobler far than 

I, 

The wanderer who vexed all gentle¬ 
ness, 

Receive this song; 1 have but this to 
give. 

I may not rear the rich man’s ghostly 
stone; 

But you, through all my follies loving 
still 

And trusting me . . . nay, I shall 
not forget. 

A failing hand in mine, and fading eyes 

That look’d in mine as from another 
land, 


You said: “Some gentler things; a 
song for Peace. 

’Mid all your songs for men one song 
for God.” 

And then the dark-brow’d mother 
Death, bent down 

Her face to yours, and you were born 
to Him. 


11 In the desert a fountain is springing , 
In the wild waste there still is a 
tree." 

Though the many lights dwindle to one 
light , 

There is help if the heavens have one." 

“ Change lays not her handupontruth." 


301 































\ 







AT BETHLEHEM 


With incense and myrrh and sweet 
spices, 

Frankincense and sacredest oil 

In ivory, chased with devices 

Cut quaint and in serpentine coil; 

Heads bared, and held down to the 
bosom; 

Brows massive with wisdom and 
bronzed; 

Beards white as the white May in 
blossom; 

And borne to the breast and 
beyond,— 


Came the Wise of the East, bending 
lowly 

On staffs, with their garments girt 
round 

With girdles of hair, to the Holy 

Child Christ, in their sandals. The 
sound 

Of song and thanksgiving ascended— 
Deep night! Yet some shepherds afar 
Heard a wail with the worshipping 
blended 

And they then knew the sign of the 
star. 


“LA NOTTE” 


Is it night? And sits night at your 
pillow? 

Sits darkness about you like 
Death? 

Rolls darkness above like a billow, 

As drowning men catch in their 
breath? 

Is it night, and deep night of dark 
errors, 

Of crosses, of pitfalls and bars? 

Then lift up your face from your 
terrors, 

For heaven alone holds the stars! 


Lo! shaggy-beard shepherds, the 
fastness—■ 

Lorn, desolate Syrian sod; 

The darkness, the midnight, the vast¬ 
ness— 

That vast, solemn night bore a 
God! 

The night brought us God; and the 
Savior 

Lay down in a cradle to rest; 

A sweet cherub Babe in behavior, 

So that all baby-world might be 
blest. 


3°3 




304 


31 n Palestine 

IN PALESTINE 


0 Jebus! thou mother of prophets, 

Of soldiers and heroes of song; 

Let the crescent oppress thee and 
scoff its 

Blind will, let the days do thee 
wrong; 

But to me thou art sacred and 
splendid, 

And to me thou art matchless and 
fair, 

As the tawny sweet twilight, with 
blended 

Sunlight and red stars in her hair. 

Thy fair ships once came from sweet 
Cyprus, 

And fair ships drew in from Cyrene 

With fruits and rich robes and sweet 
spices 

For thee and thine, eminent queen; 

And camels came in with the traces 

Of white desert dust in their hair 

As they kneel’d in the loud market 
places, 

And Arabs with lances were there. 

’Tis past, and the Bedouin pillows 

His head where thy battlements fall, 

And thy temples flash gold to the 
billows, 

Never more over turreted wall. 

BEYOND 

And they came to Him, mothers of 
Judah, 

Dark eyed and in splendor of hair, 


'Tis past, and the green velvet 

mosses 

Have grown by the sea, and now 

sore 

Does the far billow mourn for his 

losses 

Of lifted white ships to the shore. 

Let the crescent uprise, let it flash 
on 

Thy dust in the garden of death, 
Thy chastened and passionless 
passion 

Sunk down to the sound of a 
breath; 

Yet you lived like a king on a throne 
and 

You died like a queen of the south; 
For you lifted the cup with your own 
hand 

To your proud and your passionate 
mouth; 

Like a splendid swift serpent sur¬ 
rounded 

With fire and sword, in your side 
You struck your hot fangs and 
confounded 

Your foes; you struck deep, and so 
—died. 

JORDAN 

Bearing down over shoulders of 
beauty, 

And bosoms half hidden, half bare; 


i 




Jfattfj 


305 


And they brought Him their babes 
and besought Him 

Half kneeling, with suppliant air, 
To bless the brown cherubs they 
brought Him, 

With holy hands laid in their hair. 

Then reaching His hands He said, 
lowly, 

“Of such is My Kingdom”; and 
then 


Took the brown little babes in the 
holy 

White hands of the Savior of men; 

Held them close to His heart and 
caress’d them, 

Put His face down to theirs as in 
prayer, 

Put their hands to His neck, and so 
bless’d them 

With baby hands hid in His hair. 


FAITH 


There were whimsical turns of the 
waters, 

There were rhythmical talks of the 
sea,— 

There were gather’d the darkest eyed 
daughters 

Of men, by the deep Galilee. 

A blowing full sail, and a parting 
From multitudes, living in Him, 

A trembling of lips, and tears starting 
From eyes that look’d downward 
and dim. 


A mantle of night and a marching 
Of storms, and a sounding of seas, 

Of furrows of foam and of arching 
Black billows; a bending of knees; 

The rising of Christ—an entreat¬ 
ing— 

Hands reach’d to the seas as He 
saith, 

“Have Faith!” And all seas are 
repeating, 

“Have Faith! Have Faith! 
Have Faith!” 


HOPE 


What song is well sung not of 
sorrow? 

What triumph well won without 
pain? 

What virtue shall be, and not borrow 

Bright luster from many a stain? 

What birth has there been without 
travail? 

What battle well won without 
blood? 


What good shall earth see without 
evil 

Ingarner’d as chaff with the good? 

Lo! the cross set in rocks by the 
Roman, 

And nourish’d by blood of the 
Lamb, 

And water’d by tears of the woman, 

Has flourish’d, has spread like a 
palm; 


20 





Cfjaritp 


306 

Has spread in the frosts, and far 
regions 

Of snows in the North, and South 
sands, 

Where never the tramp of his legions 

Was heard, or reach’d forth his red 
hands. 

Be thankful; the price and the pay¬ 
ment, 

The birth, the privations and scorn, 


The cross, and the parting of raiment, 

Are finish’d. The star brought us 
mom. 

Look starward; stand far and tin- 
earthy, 

Free soul’d as a banner unfurl’d. 

Be worthy, O brother, be worthy! 

For a God was the price of the 
world. 


CHARITY 


Her hands were clasped downward 
and doubled, 

Her head was held down and 
depress’d, 

Her bosom, like white billows 
troubled, 

Fell fitful and rose in unrest; 

Her robes were all dust and dis¬ 
order’d 

Her glory of hair, and her brow, 

Her face, that had lifted and lorded, 

Fell pallid and passionless now. 

She heard not accusers that brought 
her 

In mockery hurried to Him, 

Nor heeded, nor said, nor besought 
her 

With eyes lifted doubtful and dim. 

All crush'd and stone-cast in be¬ 
havior, 

She stood as a marble would 
stand, 


Then the Savior bent down, and the 
Savior 

In silence wrote on in the sand. 

What wrote He? How fondly one 
lingers 

And questions, what holy command 

Fell down from the beautiful fingers 

Of Jesus, like gems in the sand. 

O better the Scian uncherish’d 

Had died ere a note or device 

Of battle was fashion’d, than perish’d 

This only line written by Christ. 

He arose and look’d on the daugh¬ 
ter 

Of Eve, like a delicate flower, 

And he heard the revilers that 
brought her; 

Men stormy, and strong as a 
tower; 

And He said, “She has sinn’d; let the 
blameless 




307 


®fje iLaist Puppet 


Come forward and cast the first 
stone!” 

But they, they fled shamed and yet 
shameless; 

And she, she stood white and 
alone. 

Who now shall accuse and arraign us? 

What man shall condemn and 
disown? 

Since Christ has said only the stain¬ 
less 

Shall cast at his fellows a stone. 

For what man can bare us his 
bosom, 

And touch with his forefinger there, 


And say, Tis as snow, as a 
blossom? 

Beware of the stainless, beware! 

O woman, bom first to believe us; 

Yea, also bom first to forget; 

Bom first to betray and deceive us; 
Yet first to repent and regret! 

O first then in all that is human, 
Yea! first where the Nazarene 
trod, 

O woman! O beautiful woman! 

Be then first in the kingdom of 
God! 


THE LAST SUPPER 

“And when they had sung an hymn they went out unto the Mount of ^Olives.”—Bible. 


What song sang the twelve with the 
Saviour 

When finish’d the sacrament wine? 

Were they bow’d and subdued in 
behavior, 

Or bold as made bold with a sign? 

What sang they? What sweet song 
of Zion 

With Christ in their midst like a 
crown? 

While here sat Saint Peter, the lion; 

And there like a lamb, with head 
down, 

Sat Saint John, with his silken and 
raven 

Rich hair on his shoulders, and 
eyes 

Lifting up to the faces unshaven 

Like a sensitive child’s in surprise. 


Was the song as strong fishermen 
swinging 

Their nets full of hope to the sea? 

Or low, like the ripple-wave, singing 

Sea-songs on their loved Galilee? 

Were they sad with foreshadow of 
sorrows, 

Like the birds that sing low when 
the breeze 

Is tip-toe with a tale of tomorrows,— 

Of earthquakes and sinking of 
seas? 

Ah! soft was their song as the waves 
are 

That fall in low musical moans; 

And sad I should say as the winds 
are 

That blow by the white grave¬ 
stones. 





3°8 


i 


a g>ong for peace 

A SONG FOR PEACE 


V 


As a tale that is told, as a vision, 

Forgive and forget; for I say 

That the true shall endure the 
derision 

Of the false till the full of the day; 

II 

Ay, forgive as you would be for¬ 
given ; 

Ay, forget, lest the ill you have 
done 

Be remember’d against you in heaven 

And all the days under the sun. 

III 

For who shall have bread without 
labor? 

And who shall have rest without 
price? 

And who shall hold war with his 
neighbor 

With promise of peace with the 
Christ? 

IV 

The years may lay hand on fair 
heaven; 

May place and displace the red 
stars; 

May stain them, as blood stains are 
driven 

At sunset in beautiful bars; 


May shroud them in black till they 
fret us 

As clouds with their showers of 
tears; 

May grind us to dust and forget us, 

May the years, O, the pitiless 
years! 

VI 

But the precepts of Christ are be¬ 
yond them; 

The truths by the Nazarene 
taught, 

With the tramp of the ages upon 
them, 

They endure as though ages were 
naught; 

VII 

The deserts may drink up the 
fountains, 

The forests give place to the plain, 

The main may give place to the 
mountains, 

The mountains return to the main; 

VIII 

Mutations of worlds and mutations 

Of suns may take place, but the 
reign 

Of Time, and the toils and vexations 

Bequeath them, no, never a stain. 



®o &us#ia 


309 


IX 

Go forth to the fields as one sow¬ 
ing, 

Sing songs and be glad as you 

go, 

There are seeds that take root with¬ 
out showing, 

And bear some fruit whether or 
no. 


X 

And the sun shall shine sooner or 
later, 

Though the midnight breaks 
ground on the morn, 

Then appeal you to Christ, the 
Creator, 

And to gray bearded Time, His 
first born. 


TO RUSSIA 

“ Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” — Bible. 


Who tamed your lawless Tartar 
blood? 

What David bearded in her den 

The Russian bear in ages when 

You strode your black, unbridled 
stud, 

A skin-clad savage of your steppes? 

Why, one who now sits low and 
weeps, 

Why, one who now wails out to 
you— 

The Jew, the Jew, the homeless Jew. 

Who girt the thews of your young 
prime 

And bound your fierce divided 
force? 


Why, who but Moses shaped your 
course 

United down the grooves of time? 
Your mightly millions all today 
The hated, homeless Jew obey. 

Who taught all poetry to you? 

The Jew, the Jew, the hated Jew. 

Who taught you tender Bible tales 
Of honey-lands, of milk and wine? 

Of happy, peaceful Palestine? 

Of Jordan’s holy harvest vales? 

Who gave the patient Christ? I say 
Who gave your Christian creed? 
Yea, yea, 

Who gave your very God to you? 
Your Jew! Your Jew! Your hated 
Jew! 


TO RACHEL IN RUSSIA 


“ To bring them unto a good land and a large; unto a land flowing with milk and honey.” 


O thou, whose patient, peaceful 
blood 

Paints Sharon’s roses on thy cheek, 
And down thy breasts played hide 
and seek, 


Six thousand years a stainless flood, 
Rise up and set thy sad face hence. 
Rise up and come where Freedom 
waits 

Within these white, wide ocean gates 





3io 


®o &acf)el in Russia 


To give thee God’s inheritance; 

To bind thy wounds in this despair; 

To braid thy long, strong, loosened 
hair. 

O Rachel, weeping where the 
flood 

Of icy Volga grinds and flows 

Against his banks of blood-red 
snows— 

White banks made red with children’s 
blood— 

Lift up thy head, be comforted; 

For, as thou didst on manna feed, 

When Russia roamed a bear in deed, 

And on her own foul essence fed, 


So shalt thou flourish as a tree 
When Russ and Cossack shall not 
be. 

Then come where yellow harvests 
swell; 

Forsake that savage land of snows; 
Forget the brutal Russian’s blows; 
And come where Kings of Conscience 
dwell. 

Oh come, Rebecca to the well! 

The voice of Rachel shall be sweet! 
The Gleaner rest safe at the feet 
Of one who loves her; and the spell 
Of Peace that blesses Paradise 
Shall kiss thy large and lonely eyes. 



SONGS OF ITALY 







/ 


THE IDEAL AND THE REAL 


A nd full these truths eternal 
O'er the yearning spirit steal , 

That the real is the ideal , 

And the ideal is the real. 

She was damn’d with the dower of 
beauty, she 

Had gold in shower by shoulder and 
brow. 

Her feet!—why, her two blessed feet, 
were so small, 

They could nest in this hand. How 
queenly, how tall, 

How gracious, how grand! She was 
all to me,— 

My present, my past, my eternity! 

She but lives in my dreams. I be¬ 
hold her now 

By shoreless white waters that flow’d 
like a sea 

At her feet where I sat; her lips 
pushed out 

In brave, warm welcome of dimple 
and pout! 

’Twas aeons agone. By that river 
that ran 

All fathomless, echoless, limitless, 
on, 

And shoreless, and peopled with 
never a man, 

We met, soul to soul. . . . Noland; 
yet I think 


There were willows and lilies that 
lean’d to drink. 

The stars they were seal’d and the 
moons were gone. 

The wide shining circles that girdled 
that world, 

They were distant and dim. And an 
incense curl’d 

In vapory folds from that river that 
ran 

All shoreless, with never the presence 
of man. 

How sensuous the night; how soft 
was the sound 

Of her voice on the night! How 
warm was her breath 

In that world that had never yet 
tasted of death 

Or forbidden sweet fruit! ... In 
that far profound. 

We were camped on the edges of god- 
land. We 

Were the people of Saturn. The 
watery fields, 

The wide-wing’d, dolorous birds of 
the sea, 

They acknowledged but us. Our 
brave battle shields 

Were my naked white palms; our food 
it was love. 

Our roof was the fresco of gold belts 
above. 


3i3 





3H 


®fie Sbcal anb tfje 3&eal 


How turn’d she to me where that 
wide river ran, 

With its lilies and willows and watery 
weeds, 

And heeded as only a true love 
heeds! . . . 

How tender she was, and how timid 
she was! 

But a black, hoofed beast, with the 
head of a man, 

Stole down where she sat at my side, 
and began 

To puff his tan cheeks, then to play, 
then to pause, 

With his double-reed pipe; then to 
play and to play 

As never played man since the world 
began, 

And never shall play till the judgment 
day. 

How he puff’d! how he play’d! 
Then down the dim shore, 

This half-devil man, all hairy and 
black, 

Did dance with his hoofs in the sand, 
laughing back 

As his song died away. . . . She 
turned never more 

Unto me after that. She arose and 
she pass’d 

Right on from my sight. Then I 
followed as fast 

As true love can follow. But ever 
before 

Like a spirit she fled. How vain and 
how far 

Did I follow my beauty, red belt or 
white star! 

Through foamy white sea, unto fruit¬ 
laden shore. 


How long did I follow! My pent 
soul of fire 

It did feed on itself. I fasted, I 
cried; 

Was tempted by many. Yet still I 
denied 

The touch of all things, and kept my 
desire . . . 

I stood by the lion of St. Mark in that 
hour 

Of Venice when gold of the sunset is 
roll’d 

From cloud to cathedral, from turret 
to tower, 

In matchless, magnificent garments 
of gold; 

Then I knew she was near; yet I had 
not known 

Her form or her face since the stars 
were sown. 

We two had been parted—God 
pity us!—when 

This world was unnamed and all 
heaven was dim; 

We two had been parted far back on 
the rim 

And the outermost border of heaven’s 
red bars; 

We two had been parted ere the 
meeting of men, 

Or God had set compass on spaces as 
yet; 

We two had been parted ere God had 
once set 

His finger to spinning the purple with 
stars,— 

And now at the last in the sea and 
fret 

Of the sun of Venice, we two had 
met. 


/ 




®fje Sbeal anti tjje Jteal 


315 


Where the lion of Venice, with 
brows a-frown, 

With tossed mane tumbled, and teeth 
in air, 

Looks out in his watch o’er the watery 
town, 

With paw half lifted, with claw half 
bare, 

By the blue Adriatic, at her bath in 
the sea,— 

I saw her. I knew her, but she knew 
not me. 

I had found her at last! Why I, 1 
had sail’d 

The antipodes through, had sought, 
and had hail’d 

All flags; I had climbed where the 
storm clouds curl’d 

And call’d o'er the awful arch’d dome 
of the world. 

I saw her one moment, then fell 
back abash’d, 

And fill’d to the throat. . . . Then 
I turn’d me once more, 

Thanking God in my soul, while the 
level sun flashed 

Happy halos about her. . . . Her 
breast!— why, her breast 

Was white as twin pillows that lure 
you to rest. 

Her sloping limbs moved like to 
melodies told, 

As she rose from the sea, and threw 
back the gold 

Of her glorious hair, and set face to 
the shore. . . . 

I knew her! I knew her, though we 
had not met 

Since the red stars sang to the sun’s 
first set! 


How long I had sought her! I had 
hunger’d, nor ate 

Of any sweet fruits. 1 had followed 
not one 

Of all the fair glories grown under the 
sun. 

I had sought only her, believing that 
she 

Had come upon earth, and stood 
waiting for me 

Somewhere by my way. But the 
pathways of Fate 

They had led otherwhere; the round 
world round, 

The far North seas and the near 
profound 

Had fail’d me for aye. Now I stood 
by that sea 

Where she bathed in her beauty, . . . 
God, I and she! 

I spake not, but caught in my 
breath; I did raise 

My face to fair heaven to give God 
praise 

That at last ere the ending of Time, 
we had met, 

Had touched upon earth at the same 
sweet place. . . . 

Yea, we never had met since creation 
at all; 

Never, since ages ere Adam’s fall, 

Had we two met in that hunger and 
fret 

Where two should be one; but had 
wander'd through space; 

Through space and through spheres, 
as some bird that hard fate 

Gives a thousand glad Springs but 
never one mate. 




®fjc 3beal anii tfjc Beal 


316 

Was it well with my love? Was 
she true? Was she brave 

With virtue’s own valor? Was she 
waiting for me? 

Oh, how fared my love? Had she 
home? Had she bread? 

Had she known but the touch of the 
warm-temper’d wave? 

Was she born to this W'orld with a 
crown on her head, 

Or born, like myself, but a dreamer 
instead? . . . 

So long it had been! So long! Why, 
the sea— 

That wrinkled and surly, old, time- 
temper’d slave— 

Had been born, had his revels, grow T n 
wrinkled and hoar 

Since I last saw my love on that 
uttermost shore. 

Oh, how fared my love? Once I 
lifted my face, 

And I shook back my hair and look'd 
out on the sea; 

I press’d my hot palms as I stood in 
my place, 

And I cried, “Oh, I come like a king 
to your side 

Though all hell intervene!” . . . 
“Hist! she may be a bride, 

A mother at peace, with sweet babes 
at her knee! 

A babe at her breast and a spouse at 
her side!—- 

Had 1 wander’d too long, and had 
Destiny 

Sat mortal between us?” I buried 
my face 

In my hands, and I moan’d as I stood 
in my place. 


’Twas her year to be young. She 
was tall, she was fair— 

Was she pure as the snow on the Alps 
over there? 

’Twas her year to be young. She 
was queenly and tall; 

And I felt she was true, as I lifted my 
face 

And saw her press down her rich robe 
to its place, 

With a hand white and small as a 
babe’s with a doll. 

And her feet!—why, her feet in the 
white shining sand 

Were so small, ’tw r as a wonder the 
maiden could stand. 

Then she push’d back her hair with a 
round hand that shone 

And flash’d in the light with a white 
starry stone. 

Then my love she is rich! My love 
she is fair! 

Is she pure as the snow on the Alps 
over there? 

She is gorgeous with wealth! 
“Thank God, she has bread,” 

I said to myself. Then I humbled 
my head 

In gratitude deep. Then I ques¬ 
tion’d me where 

Was her palace, her parents? What 
name did she bear? 

What mortal on earth came nearest 
her heart? 

Who touch’d the small hand till it 
thrilled to a smart? 

’Twas her year to be young. She 
was rich, she was fair— 

Was she pure as the snow on the Alps 
over there? 





®f)e ilbeal anb tfje &cal 


3 i 7 


Then she loosed her rich robe that 
was blue like the sea, 

And silken and soft as a baby's new 
born. 

And my heart it leap’d light as the 
sunlight at morn 

At the sight of my love in her proud 
purity, 

As she rose like a Naiad half-robed 
from the sea. 

Then careless and calm as an empress 
can be 

She loosed and let fall all the rai¬ 
ment of blue, 

As she drew a white robe in a melody 

Of moving white limbs, while between 
the two, 

Like a rift in a cloud, shone her fair 
presence through. 

Soon she turn’d, reach’d a hand; 
then a tall gondolier 

Who had lean’d on his oar, like a long 
lifted spear 

Shot sudden and swift and all silently, 

And drew to her side as she turn’d 
from the tide. 

It was odd, such a thing, and I 
counted it queer 

That a princess like this, whether vir¬ 
gin or bride, 

Should abide thus apart as she bathed 
in the sea; 

And I chafed and I chafed, and so 
unsatisfied, 

That I flutter’d the doves that were 
perch’d close about, 

As I strode up and down in dismay 
and in doubt. 

Swift she stept in the boat on the 
borders of night 


As an angel might step on that far 
wonder land 

Of eternal sweet life, which men mis¬ 
name Death. 

Quick I called me a craft, and I 
caught at my breath 

As she sat in the boat, and her white 
baby hand 

Held vestments of gold to her throat, 
snowy white. 

Then her gondola shot,—shot sharp 
for the shore: 

There was never the sound of a song 
or of oar, 

But the doves hurried home in white 
clouds to Saint Mark, 

Where the brass horses plunge their 
high manes in the dark. 

Then I cried: “Follow fast! 
Follow fast! Follow fast! 

Aye! thrice double fare, if you follow 
her true 

To her own palace door!” There 
was plashing of oar 

And rattle of rowlock. ... I sat 
peering through, 

Looking far in the dark, peering out 
as we passed 

With my soul all alert, bending down, 
leaning low. 

But only the oaths of the fisherman’s 
crew 

When we jostled them sharp as we 
sudden shot through 

The watery town. Then a deep, dis¬ 
tant roar— 

The rattle of rowlock; the rush of the 
oar. 

The rattle of rowlock, the rush of 
the sea . . . 



®fje Sbeal anti tfjc Heal 


318 

Swift wind like a sword at the throat 
of us all! 

I lifted my face, and far, fitfully 

The heavens breathed lightning; did 
lift and let fall 

As if angels were parting God’s cur¬ 
tains. Then deep 

And indolent-like, and as if half 
asleep, 

As if half made angry to move at 
all, 

The thunder moved. It confronted 
me. 

It stood like an avalanche poised on a 
hill, 

I saw its black brows. I heard it 
stand still. 

The troubled sea throbb’d as if 
rack’d with pain. 

Then the black clouds arose and 
suddenly rode, 

As a fiery, fierce stallion that knows 
no rein 

Right into the town. Then the 
thunder strode 

As a giant striding from star to red 
star, 

Then turn’d upon earth and franti¬ 
cally came, 

Shaking the hollow heaven. And 
far 

And near red lightning in ribbon and 
skein 

Did seam and furrow the cloud with 
flame, 

And write on black heaven Jehovah’s 
name. 

Then lightnings came weaving like 
shuttlecocks, 


Weaving red robes of black clouds for 
death. 

And frightened doves fluttered them 
home in flocks, 

And mantled men hied them with 
gather’d breath. 

Black gondolas scattered as never 
before, 

And drew like crocodiles up on the 
shore; 

And vessels at sea stood further at 

sea, 

And seamen haul’d with a bended 
knee, 

And canvas came down to left and to 
right, 

Till ships stood stripp’d as if stripp’d 
for fight! 

Then an oath. Then a prayer. 
Then a gust, with rents 

Through the yellow-sail’d fishers. 
Then suddenly 

Came sharp fork’d fire! Then again 
thunder fell 

Like the great first gun. Ah, then 
there was rout 

Of ships like the breaking of regi¬ 
ments, 

And shouts as if hurled from an upper 
hell. 

Then tempest! It lifted, it spun us 
about, 

Then shot us ahead through the hills 
of the sea 

As a great steel arrow shot shoreward 
in wars— 

Then the storm split open till I saw 
the blown stars. 



®ije 3beal anb tfje 3&eal 


319 


On! on! through the foam! through 
the storm! through the town! 

She was gone! She was lost in that 
wilderness 

Of leprous white palaces. . . . 
Black distress! 

I stood in my gondola. All up and all 
down 

We pushed through the surge of the 
salt-flood street 

Above and below. . . . ’Twas only 
the beat 

Of the sea’s sad heart. ... I 
leaned, listened; I sat . . . 

’Twas only the water-rat; nothing but 
that; 

Not even the sea-bird screaming 
distress, 

As she lost her way in that wilder¬ 
ness. 

I listen’d all night. I caught at 
each sound; 

I clutch’d and I caught as a man that 
drown’d— 

Only the sullen, low growl of the 
sea 

Far out the flood-street at the edge of 
the ships; 

Only the billow slow licking his 
lips, 

A dog that lay crouching there watch¬ 
ing for me,— 

Growling and showing white teeth all 
the night; 

Only a dog, and as ready to bite; 

Only the waves with their salt-flood 
tears 

Fretting white stones of a thousand 
years. 


And then a white dome in the lofti¬ 
ness 

Of cornice and cross and of glittering 
spire 

That thrust to heaven and held the 
fire 

Of the thunder still; the bird’s 
distress 

As he struck his wings in that wilder¬ 
ness, 

On marbles that speak, and thrill, 
and inspire,— 

The night below and the night 
above; 

The water-rat building, the sea-lost 
dove; 

That one lost, dolorous, lone bird’s 
call, 

The water-rat building,—but that 
was all. 

Silently, slowly, still up and still 
down, 

We row’d and we row’d for many an 
hour, 

By beetling palace and toppling 
tower, 

In the darks and the deeps of the 
watery town. 

Only the water-rat building by 
stealth, 

Only the lone bird astray in his 
flight 

That struck white wings in the clouds 
of night, 

On spires that sprang from Queen 
Adria’s wealth; 

Only one sea dove, one lost white 
dove: 

The blackness below, the blackness 
above! 



320 


®fje 3fbeal anti tfje Beal 


Then, pushing the darkness from 
pillar to post, 

The morning came sullen and gray 
like a ghost 

Slow up the canal. I lean’d from the 
prow, 

And listen’d. Not even that dove in 
distress 

Crying its way through the wilder¬ 
ness; 

Not even the stealthy old water-rat 
now, 

Only the bell in the fisherman’s 
tower, 

Slow tolling at sea and telling the 
hour, 

To kneel to their sweet Santa 
Barbara 

For tawny fishers at sea, and to pray. 

High over my head, carved cornice, 
quaint spire. 

And ancient built palaces knock’d 
their gray brows 

Together and frown’d. Then slow- 
creeping scows 

Scraped the walls on each side. 
Above me the fire 

Of a sudden-born morning came 
flaming in bars; 

While up through the chasm I could 
count the stars. 

Oh, pity! Such ruin! The dank 
smell of of death 

Crept up the canal: I could scarce 
take my breath! 

’Twas the fit place for pirates, for 
women who keep 

Contagion of body and soul where 
they sleep. . . . 


God’s pity! A white hand now 
beckoned me 

From an old mouldy door, almost in 
my reach. 

I sprang to the sill as one wrecked to 
a beach; 

J sprang with wide arms: it was she! 
It was she! . . . 

And in such a damn’d place! And 
what was her trade? 

To think I had follow’d so faithful, so 
far 

From eternity’s brink, from star to 
white star, 

To find her, to find her, nor wife nor 
sweet maid! 

To find her a shameless poor creature 
of shame, 

A nameless, lost body, men hardly 
dared name. 

All alone in her shame, on that 
damp dismal floor 

She stood to entice me. ... I 
bow’d me before 

All-conquering beauty. I call’d her 
my Queen! 

I told her my love as I proudly had 
told 

My love had I found her as pure as 
pure gold. 

I reach’d her my hands, as fearless, as 
clean, 

As man fronting cannon. I cried, 
“Hasten forth 

To the sun! There are lands to the 
south, to the north, 

Anywhere where you will. Dash the 
shame from your brow; 

Come with me, for ever; and come 
with me now!" 



{Kfje 3fbeal anb tfje Beal 


321 


Why, I’d have turn’d pirate for her, 
would have seen 

Ships bum’d from the seas, like to 
stubble from field. 

Would I turn from her now? Why 
should I now yield, 

When she needed me most? Had I 
found her a queen, 

And beloved by the world,—wh>, 
what had I done? 

I had woo’d, and had woo’d, and had 
woo’d till I won! 

Then, if I had loved her with gold and 
fair fame, 

Would not I now love her, and love 
her the same? 

My soul hath a pride. I would tear 
out my heart 

And cast it to dogs, could it play a 
dog’s part! 

“Don’t you know me, my bride of 
the wide world of yore? 

Why, don’t you remember the white 
milky-way 

Of stars, that we traversed the aeons 
before? . . . 

We were counting the colors, we were 
naming the seas 

Of the vaster ones. You remember 
the trees 

That swayed in the cloudy white 
heavens, and bore 

Bright crystals of sweets, and the 
sweet manna-dew? 

Why, you smile as you weep, you 
remember, and you, 

You know me! You know me! 
You know me! Yea, 

You know me as if ’twere but yester¬ 
day! 


I told her all things. Her brow 
took a frown; 

Her grand Titan beauty, so tall, so 
serene, 

The one perfect woman, mine own 
idol queen— 

Her proud swelling bosom, it broke 
up and down 

As she spake, and she shook in her 
soul as she said, 

With her small hands held to her bent 
aching head: 

“Go back to the world! Go back, 
and alone 

Till kind Death comes and makes 
white as his own.” 

I said: “I will wait! I will wait in 
the pass 

Of death, until Time he shall break 
his glass.” 

Then I cried, “Yea, here where the 
gods did love, 

Where the white Europa was won,— 
she rode 

Her milk-white bull through these 
same warm seas,— 

Yea, here in the land where huge 
Hercules, 

With the lion’s heart and the heart 
of the dove, 

Did walk in his naked great strength, 
and strode 

In the sensuous air with his lion’s 
skin 

Flapping and fretting his knotted 
thews; 

Where Theseus did wander, and 
Jason cruise,— 

Yea, here let the life of all lives 
begin. 




322 


®fje Meal antJ tfje meal 


“Yea! Here where the Orient 
balms breathe life, 

Where heaven is kindest, where all 
God’s blue 

Seems a great gate open’d to welcome 
you, 

Come, rise and go forth, my empress, 
my wife.” 

Then spake her great soul, so grander 
far 

Than I had believed on that outer¬ 
most star; 

And she put by her tears, and calmly 
she said, 

With hands still held to her bended 
head: 

“I will go through the doors of death 
and wait 

For you on the innermost side death’s 
gate. 

“Thank God that this life is but a 
day’s span, 

But a wayside inn for weary, worn 
man— 

A night and a day; and, tomorrow, 
the spell 

Of darkness is broken. Now, darling, 
farewell!” 

I caught at her robe as one ready to 
die— 

“ Nay, touch not the hem of my robe 
—it is red 

With sins that your cruel sex heap’d 
on my head! 

Now turn you, yes, turn! But 
remember how I 

Wait weeping, in sackcloth, the while 
I wait 


Inside death's door, and watch at the 
gate.” 

I cried yet again, how I cried, how 
I cried, 

Reaching face, reaching hands as a 
drowning man might. 

She drew herself back, put my two 
hands aside, 

Half turned as she spoke, as one 
turned to the night: 

Speaking low, speaking soft as a wind 
through the wall 

Of a ruin where mold and night mas¬ 
ters all; 

“I shall live my day, live patient 
on through 

The life that man hath compelled me 
to, 

Then turn to my mother, sweet 
earth, and pray 

She keep me pure to the Judgment 
Day! 

I shall sit and wait as you used to 
do, 

Will wait the next life, through the 
whole life through. 

I shall sit all alone, I shall wait 
alway; 

I shall wait inside of the gate for 
you, 

Waiting, and counting the days as I 
wait; 

Yea, wait as that beggar that sat by 
the gate 

Of Jerusalem, waiting the Judgment 
Day.” 





8 20obe of g?t. fflarfe 


323 


A DOVE OF 

O terrible lion of tame Saint Mark! 

Tamed old lion with the tumbled mane 

Tossed to the clouds and lost in the 
dark, 

With teeth in the air and tail-whipp'd 
back, 

Foot on the Bible as if thy track 

Led thee the lord of the desert again ,— 

Say, what of thy watch o'er the watery 
town? 

Say, what of the worlds walking up and 
down? 

O silent old monarch that tops Saint 
Mark, 

That sat thy throne for a thousand 
years, 

That lorded the deep, that defied all 
men ,— 

Lo! I see visions at sea in the dark; 

And I see something that shines like 
tears, 

And I hear something that sounds like 
sighs, 

And I hear something that seems as 
when 

A great soul suffers and sinks and dies. 

The high-born, beautiful snow 
came down, 

Silent and soft as the terrible feet 

Of time on the mosses of ruins. 
Sweet 

Was the Christmas time in the watery 
town. 

5 Twas full flood carnival swell’d the 
sea 

Of Venice that night, and canal and 
quay 


ST. MARK 

Were alive with humanity. Man and 
maid, 

Glad in mad revel and masquerade, 

Moved through the feathery snow in 
the night, 

And shook black locks as they 
laugh’d outright. 

From Santa Maggiore, and to and 
fro, 

And ugly and black as if devils cast 
out, 

Black streaks through the night of 
such soft, white snow, 

The steel-prow'd gondolas paddled 
about; 

There was only the sound of the long 
oars dip, 

As the low moon sail’d up the sea like 
a ship 

In a misty morn. High the low moon 
rose, 

Rose veil’d and vast, through the 
feathery snows, 

As a minstrel stept silent and sad 
from his boat, 

His worn cloak clutched in his hand 
to his throat. 

Low under the lion that guards 
St. Mark, 

Down under wide wings on the edge 
of the sea 

In the dim of the lamps, on the rim of 
the dark, 

Alone and sad in the salt-flood town, 

Silent and sad and all sullenly, 

He sat by the column where the 
crocodile 



324 


& JBobe of H>t. Jllatfe 


Keeps watch o'er the wave, far mile 
upon mile. . . . 

Like a signal light through the night 
let down, 

Then a far star fell through the dim 
profound— 

A jewel that slipp’d God’s hand to the 
ground. 

The storm had blown over! Now 
up and then down, 

Alone and in couples, sweet women 
did pass, 

Silent and dreamy, as if seen in a 
glass, 

Half mask’d to the eyes, in their 
Adrian town. 

Such women! It breaks one’s heart 
to think. 

Water! and never one drop to drink! 

What types of Titian! What glory of 
hair! 

How tall as the sisters of Saul! How 
fair! 

Sweet flowers of flesh, and all 
blossoming, 

As if ’twere in Eden, and in Eden’s 
spring. 

"They are talking aloud with 
eloquent eyes, 

Yet passing me by with never one 
word. 

O pouting sweet lips, do you know 
there are lies 

That are told with the eyes, and never 
once heard 

Above a heart’s beat when the soul is 
stirr’d? 

It is time to fly home, O doves of St. 
Mark! 


Take boughs of the olive; bear these 
to your ark, 

And rest and be glad, for the seas and 
the skies 

Of Venice are fair. . . . What! 
wouldn’t go home? 

What! drifting, and drifting as the 
soil’d sea-foam? 

"And who then are you? You, 
masked and so fair? 

Your half seen face is a rose full 
blown, 

Down under your black and abun¬ 
dant hair? . . . 

A child of the street, and unloved and 
alone! 

Unloved; and alone? . . . There is 
something then 

Between us two that is not un¬ 
like! . . . 

The strength and the purposes of 
men 

Fall broken idols. We aim and 
strike 

With high-born zeal and with proud 
intent. 

Yet let life turn on some acci¬ 
dent. . . . 

"Nay, I’ll not preach. Time’s 

lessons pass 

Like twilight’s swallows. They chirp 
in their flight, 

And who takes heed of the wasting 
glass? 

Night follows day, and day follows 
night, 

And no thing rises on earth but to 
fall 




S3 ®q be of ibt. jUladi 


325 


Like leaves, with their lessons most 
sad and fit. 

They are spread like a volume each 
year to all; 

Yet men or women learn naught of it, 

Or after it all but a weariness 

Of soul and body and untold distress. 

“Yea, sit, lorn child, by my side, 
and we, 

We will talk of the world. Nay, let 
my hand 

Fall kindly to yours, and so, let your 
face 

Fall fair to my shoulder, and you shall 
be 

My dream of sweet Italy. Here in 
this place, 

Alone in the crowds of this old care¬ 
less land. 

I shall shelter your form till the morn 
and then— 

Why, I shall return to the world and 
to men, 

And you, not stain’d for one strange, 
kind word 

And my three last francs, for a lorn 
night bird. 

“Fear nothing from me, nay, never 
once fear. 

The day, my darling, comes after the 
night. 

The nights they were made to show 
the light 

Of the stars in heaven, though the 
storms be near. . . . 

Do you see that figure of Fortune up 
there, 

That tops the Dogana with toe 
a-tip 


Of the great gold ball? Her scroll 
is a-trip 

To the turning winds. She is light as 
the air. 

Her foot is set upon plenty’s horn, 

Her fair face set to the coming 
morn. 

“Well, trust we to Fortune. . . . 
Bread on the wave 

Turns ever ashore to the hand that 
gave. 

What am I? A poet—a lover of 
all 

That is lovely to see. Nay, naught 
shall befall. . . . 

Yes, I am a failure. I plot and I 
plan, 

Give splendid advice to my fellow- 
man, 

Yet ever fall short of achievement. 

. . . Ah me! 

In my lorn life’s early, sad after¬ 
noon, 

Say, what have I left but a rhyme or a 
rune? 

An empty frail hand for some soul at 
sea, 

Some fair, forbidden, sweet fruit to 
choose, 

That ’twere sin to touch, and—sin to 
refuse? 

“What! I go drifting with you, 
girl, to-night? 

To sit at your side and to call you 
love? 

Well, that were a fancy! To feed a 
dove, 

A poor soil’d dove of this dear Saint 
Mark, 



326 


S 2Bobe of g>t. iWaife 


Too frighten’d to rest and too weary 
for flight. . . . 

Aye, just three francs, my fortune. 
There! He 

Who feeds the sparrows for this will 
feed me. 

Now here ’neath the lion, alone in the 
dark, 

And side by side let us sit, poor 
dear, 

Breathing the beauty as an 
atmosphere. . . . 

“We will talk of your loves, I write 
tales of love . . . 

What! Cannot read? Why, you 
never heard then 

Of your Desdemona, nor the daring 
men 

Who died for her love? My poor 
white dove, 

There’s a story of Shylock would 
drive you wild. 

What! Never have heard of these 
stories, my child? 

Of Tasso, of Petrarch? Not the 
Bridge of Sighs? 

Not the tale of Ferrara? Not the 
thousand whys 

That your Venice was ever adored 
above 

All other fair lands for her stories of 
love? 

“What then about Shylock? T’was 
gold. Yes—dead. 

The lady? ’Twas love. . . . Why 
yes; she too 

Is dead. And Byron? ’Twas fame. 
Ah, true. . . 


Tasso and Petrarch? All died, just 
the same. . . . 

Yea, so endeth all, as you truly have 
said, 

And you, poor girl, are too wise; and 
you, 

Too sudden and swift in your hard, 
ugly youth, 

Have stumbled face fronting an 
obstinate truth. 

For whether for love, for gold, or for 
fame, 

They but lived their day, and they 
died the same. 

But let’s talk not of death? Of 
death or the life 

That comes after death? ’Tis be¬ 
yond your reach, 

And this too much thought has a 
sense of strife. . . . 

Ah, true; I promised you not to 
preach. . . . 

My maid of Venice, or maid un¬ 
made, 

Hold close your few francs and be not 
afraid. 

What! Say you are hungry? Well, 
let us dine 

Till the near morn comes on the silver 
shine 

Of the lamp-lit sea. At the dawn of 
day, 

My sad child-woman, you can go 
your way. 

“What! You have a palace? I 
know your town; 

Know every nook of it, left and 
right, 



ill 30otoe of H>t. jflarfe 


327 


As well as yourself. Why, far up and 
down 

Your salt flood streets, lo, many a 
night 

I have row’d and have roved in my 
lorn despair 

Of love upon earth, and I know well 
there 

Is no such palace. What! and you 
dare 

To look in my face and to lie out¬ 
right, 

To lift your face, and to frown me 
down? 

There is no such palace in that part of 
the town! 

“You would woo me away to your 
rickety boat! 

You would pick my pockets! You 
would cut my throat, 

With help of your pirates! Then 
throw me out 

Loaded with stones to sink me 
down, 

Down into the filth and the dregs of 
your town! 

Why, that is your damnable aim, no 
doubt! 

And, my plaintive voiced child, you 
seem too fair, 

Too fair, for even a thought like 
that; 

Too fair for ever such sin to dare— 

Ay, even the tempter to whisper 
at. 

“ Now, there is such a thingas being 
true, 

True, even in villainy. Listen to me: 

Black-skinn’d women and low-brow’d 
men, 


And desperate robbers and thieves; 
and then, 

Why, there are the pirates! . . . Ay, 
pirates reform'd— 

Pirates reform’d and unreform’d; 

Pirates for me, girl, friends for you,— 

And these are your neighbors. And 
so you see 

That I know your town, your neigh¬ 
bors; and I— 

Well, pardon me, dear—but I know 
you lie. 

“Tut, tut, my beauty! What 
trickery now? 

Why, tears through your hair on my 
hand like rain! 

Come! look in my face: laugh, lie 
again 

With your wonderful eyes. Lift up 
your brow, 

Laugh in the face of the world, and 
lie! 

Now, come! This lying is no new 
thing. 

The wearers of laces know well how 
to lie, 

As well, ay, better, than you or I . . . 

But they lie for fortune, for fame: 
instead, 

You, child of the street, only lie for 
your bread. 

. . . “Some sounds blow in from the 
distant land. 

The bells strike sharp, and as out of 
tune, 

Some sudden, short notes. To the 
east and afar, 

And up from the sea, there is lifting 
a star 




328 


3 JBotie of £S>t. Jflatfc 


As large, my beautiful child, and as 
white 

And as lovely to see as some lady’s 
white hand. 

The people have melted away with 
the night, 

And not one gondola frets the 
lagoon. 

See! Away to the mountain, the 
face of morn. 

Hear! Away to the sea—’tis the 
fisherman’s horn. 

“’Tis morn in Venice! My child, 
adieu! 

Arise, sad sister, and go your way; 

And as for myself, why, much like 
you, 

I shall sell the story to who will 
pay 

And dares to reckon it true and 
meet. 

Yea, each of us traders, poor child of 
pain; 

For each must barter for bread to 
eat 

In a world of trade and an age of 
gain; 

With just this difference, waif of the 
street, 

You sell your body, I sell my brain. 

“Poor lost little vessel, with never 
a keel. 

Saint Marks, what a wreck! Lo, 
here you reel, 

With never a soul to advise or to 
care; 

All cover’d with sin to the brows and 
hair, 

You lie like a seaweed, well a-strand; 


Blown like the sea-kelp hard on the 
shale, 

A half-drown’d body, with never a 
hand 

Reach’d out to help where you falter 
and fail: 

Left stranded alone to starve and to 
die, 

Or to sell your body to who may 
buy. 

“My sister of sin, I will kiss you! 
Yea, 

I will fold you, hold you close to my 
breast; 

And here as you rest in your first 
fair rest, 

As night is push’d back from the face 
of day 

I will push your heavy, dark heaven 
of hair 

Well back from your brow, and kiss 
you where 

Your ruffian, bearded, black men of 
crime 

Have stung you and stain’d you a 
thousand time; 

I will call you my sister, sweet child, 
and keep 

You close to my heart, lest you wake 
but to weep. 

“I will tenderly kiss you, and I 
shall not be 

Ashamed, nor yet stain’d in the 
least, sweet dove,— 

I will tenderly kiss, with the kiss of 
Love, 

And of Faith, and of Hope, and of 
Charity. 



& ©obe of §s>L jffflarfe 


329 


Nay, I shall be purer and be better 
then; 

For, child of the street, you, living or 
dead, 

Stain’d to the brows, are purer to 
me 

Ten thousand times than the world 
of men, 

Who reach you a hand but to lead you 
astray,— 

But the dawn is upon us. There! 
go your way. 

“And take great courage. Take 
courage and say, 

Of this one Christmas when I am 
away, 

Roving the world and forgetful of 
you, 

That I found you as white as the snow 
and knew 

You but needed a word to keep you 
true. 

When you fall weary and so need 
rest, 

Then find kind words hidden down in 
your breast; 

And if rough men question you,— 
why, then say 

That Madonna sent them. Then 
kneel and pray, 

And pray for me, the worse of the 
two: 

Then God will bless you, sweet child, 
and I 

Shall be the better when I come to die. 

“Yea, take great courage, it will be 
as bread; 

Have faith, have faith while this day 
wears through. 


Then rising refresh’d, try virtue 
instead; 

Be stronger and better, poor, pitiful 
dear, 

So prompt with a lie, so prompt with 
a tear, 

For the hand grows stronger as the 
heart grows true. . . . 

Take courage my child, for I promise 
you 

We are judged by our chances of life 
and lot; 

And your poor soul may yet pass 
through 

The eye of the needle, where laces 
shall not. 

“Sad dove of the dust, with tear- 
wet wings, 

Homeless and lone as the dove from 
its ark,— 

Do you reckon yon angel that tops 
St. Mark, 

That tops the tower, that tops the 
town, 

If he knew us two, if he knew all 
things, 

Would say, or think, you are worse 
than I? 

Do you reckon yon angel, now look¬ 
ing down, 

Far down like a star, he hangs so 
high, 

Could tell which one were the worse 
of us two? 

Child of the street—it is not you! 

“If we two were dead, and laid 
side by side 

Right here on the pavement, this very 
day, 




330 


Como 


Here under the sun-flushed maiden 
sky, 

Where the morn flows in like a rosy 
tide, 

And the sweet Madonna that stands 
in the moon, 

With her crown of stars, just across 
the lagoon, 

Should come and should look upon 
you and I,— 

Do you reckon, my child, that she 
would decide 

As men do decide and as women do 
say, 

That you are so dreadful, and turn 
away? 

“If angels were sent to choose this 
day 

Between us two as we rest here, 

Here side by side in this storied 
place,— 

If angels were sent to choose, I 
say, 

This very moment the best of the 
two, 

You, white with a hunger and stain’d 
with a tear, 


Or I, the rover the wide world 
through, 

Restless and stormy as any sea,— 

Looking us two right straight in the 
face, 

Child of the street, he would not 
choose me. 

“The fresh sun is falling on turret 
and tower, 

The far sun is flashing on spire and 
dome, 

The marbles of Venice are bursting to 
flower, 

The marbles of Venice are flower and 
foam: 

Good night and good morn; I must 
leave you now. 

There! bear my kiss on your pale, soft 
brow 

Through earth to heaven: and when 
we shall meet 

Beyond the darkness, poor waif of 
the street, 

Why, then I shall 1-mow you, my sad, 
sweet dove; 

Shall claim you, and kiss you, with 
the kiss of love.” 


COMO 


The lakes lay bright as bits of 
broken moon 

Just newly set within the cloven 
earth ; 

The ripen’d fields drew round a 
golden girth 

Far up the steeps, and glittered in the 
noon; 


And when the sun fell down, from 
leafy shore 

Fond lovers stole in pairs to ply the 
oar; 

The stars, as large as lilies, fleck’d 
the blue; 

From out the Alps the moon came 
wheeling through 




Como 


33i 


The rocky pass the great Napoleon 
knew. 

A gala night it was,—the season’s 
prime. 

We rode from castled lake to festal 
town, 

To fair Milan—my friend and I; rode 
down 

By night, where grasses waved in 
rippled rhyme: 

And so, what theme but love at such a 
time? 

His proud lip curl’d the while with 
silent scorn 

At thought of love; and then, as one 
forlorn, 

He sigh’d; then bared his temples, 
dash’d with gray; 

Then mock’d, as one outworn and 
well blase. 

A gorgeous tiger lily, flaming 
red,— 

So full of battle, of the trumpets 
blare, 

Of old-time passion, uprear’d its 
head. 

I gallop’d past. I lean'd. I clutch’d 
it there 

From out the stormy grass. I held 
it high, 

And cried: “Lo! this to-night shall 
deck her hair 

Through all the dance. And mark! 
the man shall die 

Who dares assault, for good or ill 
design, 

The citadel where I shall set this 
sign.” 


O, she shone fairer than the 
summer star, 

Or curl’d sweet moon in middle 
destiny; 

More fair than sun-mom climbing up 
the sea, 

Where all the loves of Adriana 
are. . . . 

Who loves, who truly loves, will 
stand aloof: 

The noisy tongue makes most un¬ 
holy proof 

Of shallow passion. . . . All the 
while afar 

From out the dance I stood and 
watched my star, 

My tiger lily borne, an oriflamme of 
war. 

A down the dance she moved with 
matchless grace. 

The world—my world—moved with 
her. Suddenly 

I question’d whom her cavalier might 
be? 

’Twas he! His face was leaning to 
her face! 

I clutch’d my blade; I sprang, I 
caught my breath,— 

And so, stood leaning cold and still as 
death. 

And they stood still. She blushed, 
then reach’d and tore 

The lily as she passed, and down the 
floor 

She strew’d its heart like jets of gush¬ 
ing gore. . . . 

’Twas he said heads, not hearts 
were made to break; 



332 


Sunrise tn VTetxtce 


He taught her this that night in 
splendid scorn. 

I learn’d too well. . . . The dance 
was done, ere morn 

We mounted—he and I—but no 
more spake. . . . 

And this for woman’s love! My lily 
worn 

Tn her dark hair in pride, to then be 
torn 

And trampled on, for this bold 
stranger’s sake! . . . 

Two men rode silent back toward the 
lake; 

SUNRISE 

Night seems troubled and scarce 
asleep; 

Her brows are gather’d as in broken 
rest. 

A star in the east starts up from the 
deep! 

’Tis morn, new-born, with a star on 
her breast, 

White as my lilies that grow in the 
West! 

Hist! men are passing me hurriedly. 

I see the yellow, wide wings of a 
bark, 

Sail silently over my morning star. 

I see men move in the moving dark, 

Tall and silent as columns are; 

Great, sinewy men that are good to 
see, 

With hair push'd back, and with open 
breasts; 

Barefooted fishermen seeking their 
boats, 

Brown as walnuts, and hairy as 
goats,— 


Two men rode silent down—but only 
one 

Rode up at morn to meet the rising 
sun. 

The red-clad fishers row and creep 
Below the crags as half asleep, 

Nor ever make a single sound. 

The walls are steep, 

The waves are deep; 

And if a dead man should be found 
By these same fishers in their round, 
Why, who shall say but he was 
drown’d? 

4 VENICE 

Brave old water-dogs, wed to the 
sea, 

First to their labors and last to their 
rests. 

Ships are moving. I hear a 
horn,— 

Answers back, and again it calls. 

’Tis the sentinel boats that watch the 
town 

All night, as mounting her watery 
walls, 

And watching for pirate or smuggler. 
Down 

Over the sea, and reaching away, 

And against the east, a soft light 
falls, 

Silvery soft as the mist of morn, 

And I catch a breath like the breath 
of day. 

The east is blossoming! Yea, a 
rose, 

Vast as the heavens, soft as a kiss, 




Vale! America 


333 


Sweet as the presence of woman is, 

Rises and reaches, and widens and 
grows 

Large and luminous up from the 
sea, 

And out of the sea as a blossoming 
tree. 

Richer and richer, so higher and 
higher, 

Deeper and deeper it takes its 
hue; 

Brighter and brighter it reaches 
through 


The space of heaven to the place of 
stars. 

Then beams reach upward as arms 
from the sea; 

Then lances and arrows are aimed at 
me. 

Then lances and spangles and spars 
and bars 

Are broken and shiver’d and strown 
on the sea; 

And around and about me tower and 
spire 

Start from the billows like tongues of 
fire. 


VALE! AMERICA 


Let me rise and go forth. A far, 
dim spark 

Illumes my path. The light of my 
day 

Hath fled, and yet am I far away. 

The bright, bent moon has dipp’d her 
horn 

In the darkling sea. High up in the 
dark 

The wrinkled old lion, he looks away 

To the east, and impatient as if for 
mom. . . . 

I have gone the girdle of earth, and 
say, 

What have I gain’d but a temple 
gray, 

Two crow’s feet, and a heart for¬ 
lorn? 

A star starts yonder like a soul 
afraid! 

It falls like a thought through the 
great profound. 


Fearfully swift and with never a 
sound, 

It fades into nothing, as all things 
fade; 

Yea, as all things fail. And where is 
the leaven 

In the pride of a name or a proud 
man’s nod? 

Oh, tiresome, tiresome stairs to 
heaven! 

Weary, oh, wearysome ways to 
God! 

’Twere better to sit with the chin on 
the palm, 

Slow tapping the sand, come storm, 
come calm. 

I have lived from within and not 
from without; 

I have drunk from a fount, have fed 
from a hand 

That no man knows who lives upon 
land; 




334 


"^ale! America 


And yet my soul it is crying out. 

I care not a pin for the praise of 
men; 

But I hunger for love. I starve, f 
die, 

Each day of my life. Ye pass me 
by 

Each day, and laugh as ye pass; and 
when 

Ye come, I start in my place as ye 
come, 

And lean, and would speak,—but my 
lips are dumb. 

Yon sliding stars and the changeful 
moon. . . . 

Let me rest on the plains of Lombardy 
for aye, 

Or sit down by this Adrian Sea and 
die. 

The days that do seem as some 
afternoon 

They all are here. I am strong and 
true 

To myself; can pluck and could plant 
anew 

My heart, and grow tall; could come 
to be 

Another being; lift bolder hand 

And conquer. Yet ever will come to 
me 

The thought that Italia is not my 
land. 

Could I but return to my woods 
once more, 

And dwell in their depths as I have 
dwelt, 

Kneel in their mosses as I have 
knelt, 


Sit where the cool white rivers 
run, 

Away from the world and half hid 
from the sun, 

Hear winds in the wood of my storm- 
torn shore, 

To tread where only the red man 
trod, 

To say no word, but listen to God! 

Glad to the heart with listening,— 

It seems to me that I then could 
sing, 

And sing as never sung man before. 

But deep-tangled woodland and 
wild waterfall, 

O farewell for aye, till the Judgment 
Day! 

I shall see you no more, O land of 
mine, 

O half-aware land, like a child at 
play! 

O voiceless and vast as the push’d- 
back skies! 

No more, blue seas in the blest 
sunshine, 

No more, black woods where the 
white peaks rise, 

No more, bleak plains where the high 
winds fall, 

Or the red man keeps or the shrill 
birds call! 

I must find diversion with another 
kind: 

There are roads on the land, broad 
roads on the sea; 

Take ship and sail, and sail till I 
find 

The love that I sought from etern¬ 
ity; 



^ale! America 


335 


Run away from oneself, take ship and 
sail 

The middle white seas; see turban’d 
men,— 

Throw thought to the dogs for aye. 
And when 

All seas are travel’d and all scenes 
fail, 

Why, then this doubtful, sad gift of 
verse 

May save me from death—or some¬ 
thing worse. 

My hand it is weary, and my harp 
unstrung; 

And where is the good that I pipe or 
sing, 

Fashion new notes, or shape any 
thing? 

The songs of my rivers remain 
unsung 

Henceforward for me. . . . But a 
man shall arise 

From the far, vast valleys of the 
Occident, 

With hand on a harp of gold, and with 
eyes 

That lift with glory and a proud 
intent; 

Yet so gentle indeed, that his sad 
heartstrings 

Shall thrill to the heart of your heart 
as he sings. 

Let the wind sing songs in the lake¬ 
side reeds, 

Lo, I shall be less than the indolent 
wind! 

Why should I sow, when I reap and 
bind 


And gather in nothing but the thistle 
weeds? 

It is best I abide, let what will 
befall; 

To rest if I can, let time roll by: 

Let others endeavor to learn, while 

I, 

With naught to conceal, with much to 
regret, 

Shall sit and endeavor, alone, to 
forget. 

Shall I shape pipes from these 
seaside reeds, 

And play for the children, that shout 
and call? 

Lo! men they have mock'd me the 
whole year through! 

I shall sing no more. ... I shall 
find in old creeds, 

And in quaint old tongues, a world 
that is new; 

And these, I will gather the sweets of 
them all. 

And the old-time doctrines and the 
old-time signs, 

I will taste of them all, as tasting old 
wines. 

I will find new thought, as a new¬ 
found vein 

Of rock-lock'd gold in my far, fair 
West. 

I will rest and forget, will entreat to 
be blest; 

Take up new thought and again grow 
young; 

Yea, take a new world as one bom 
again, 

And never hear more mine own 
mother tongue; 





336 


yJale! America 


Nor miss it. Why should I? I 
never once heard, 

In my land’s language, love’s one 
sweet word. 

Did I court fame, or the favor of 
man? 

Make war upon creed, or strike hand 
with clan? 

I sang my songs of the sounding 
trees, 

As careless of name or of fame as the 
seas; 

And these I sang for the love of 
these, 

And the sad sweet solace they 
brought to me. 

I but sang for myself, touch’d here, 
touch’d there, 

As a strong-wing'd bird that flies 
anywhere. 

. . . How do I wander! And 

yet why not? 

I once had a song, told a tale in 
rhyme; 

Wrote books, indeed, in my proud 
young prime; 

I aim'd at the heart like a musket 
ball; 

I struck cursed folly like a cannon 
shot,— 

And where is the glory or good of it 
all? 

\ 

Yet these did I write for my land, but 
this 

I write for myself,—and it is as it 
is. 

Yea, storms have blown counter 
and shaken me. 


And yet was I fashion’d for strife, and 
strong 

And daring of heart, and born to 
endure; 

My soul sprang upward, my feet felt 
sure; 

My faith was as wide as a wide- 
bough’d tree. 

But there be limits; and a sense of 
wrong 

Forever before you will make you 
less 

A man, than a man at first would 
guess. 

Good men can forgive—and, they 
say,forget . . . 

Far less of the angel than Indian is 
set 

In my fierce nature. And I look 
away 

To a land that is dearer than this, and 
say, 

“I shall remember, though you may 
forget. 

Yea, I shall remember for aye and a 
day 

The keen taunts thrown in a boy face, 
when 

He cried unto God for the love of 
men.” 

Enough, ay and more than enough, 
of this! 

I know that the sunshine must follow 
the rain; 

And if this be the winter, why spring 
again 

Must come in its season, full 
blossom’d with bliss. 



Vale! America 


337 


1 will lean to the storm, though the 
winds blow strong. „ . . 

Yea, the winds they have blown and 
have shaken me— 

As the winds blow songs through a 
shattered old tree, 

They have blown this broken and 
careless set song. 

They have sung this song, be it 
never so bad; 

Have blown upon me and play’d upon 

me, 

Have broken the notes,—blown sad, 
blown glad; 

Just as the winds blow fierce and 
free 

A barren, a blighted, and a cursed fig 
tree. 

And if I grow careless and heed no 
whit 

Whether it please or what comes of 
it, 

Why, talk to the winds, then, and not 
to me. 


The quest of love? ’Tis the quest 
of troubles; 

'Tis the wind through the woods of 
the Oregon. 

Sit down, sit down, for the world goes 


on 


Precisely the same; and the rainbow 
bubbles 


Of lo^e, they gather, or break, or 
blow, 

Whether you bother your brain or 
no; 

And for all your troubles and all your 
tears, 


’Twere just the same in a hundred 
years. 

By the populous land, or the lone¬ 
some sea, 

Lo! these were the gifts of the gods to 
men,— 

Three miserable gifts, and only 
three: 

To love, to forget, and to die—and 
then? 

To love in peril, and bitter-sweet 
pain, 

And then, forgotten, lie down and 
die: 

One moment of sun, whole seasons of 
rain, 

Then night is roll’d to the door of the 
sky. 

To love? To sit at her feet and to 
weep; 

To climb to her face, hide your face 
in her hair; 

To nestle you there like a babe in its 
sleep, 

And, too, like a babe, to believe—it 
stings there! 

To love! ’Tis to suffer, “Lie close to 
my breast, 

Like a fair ship in haven, O darling!” 
I cried. * 

“Your round arms outreaching to 
heaven for rest 

Make signal to death.’’ .... Death 
chme, and love died. 

To forget? To forget, mount horse 
and clutch sword; 

Take ship and make sail to the ice- 
prison’d seas, 


22 





338 


■*4Jalc! America 


Write books and preach lies; range 
lands; or go hoard 

A grave full of gold, and buy wines— 
and drink lees: 

Then die; and die cursing, and call it 
a prayer! 

Is earth but a top—a boy-god’s 
delight, 

To be spun for his pleasure, while 
man’s despair 

Breaks out like a wail of the damn’d 
through the night? 

Sit down in the darkness and weep 
with me 

On the edge of the world. Lo, love 
lies dead! 

And the earth and the sky, and the 
sky and the sea, 

Seem shutting together as a book that 
is read. 

Yet what have we learn'd? We 
laugh’d with delight 

In the morning at school, and kept 
toying with all 

Time’s silly playthings. Now 
wearied ere night, 

We must cry for dark-mother, her 
cradle the pall. 

'Twere better blow trumpets 
’gainst love, keep away 

That traitorous urchin with fire or 
shower, 

Than have him come near you for one 
little hour. 

Take physic, consult with your doc¬ 
tor, as you 

Would fight a contagion; carry all 
through 


The populous day some drug that 
smells loud, 

As you pass on your way, or make 
way through the crowd. 

Talk war, or carouse; only keep off 
the day 

Of his coming, with every hard means 
in your way. 

Blow smoke in the eyes of the world 
and laugh 

With the broad-chested men, as you 
loaf at your inn, 

As you crowd to your inn from your 
saddle and quaff 

Red wine from a horn; while your 
dogs at your feet, 

Your slim spotted dogs, like the fawn, 
and as fleet, 

Crouch patiently by and look up at 
your face, 

As they wait for the call of the horn 
to the chase; 

For you shall not suffer, and you shall 
not sin 

Until peace goes out just as love 
comes in. 

Love horses and hounds, meet 
many good men— 

Yea, men are most proper, and keep 
you from care. 

There is strength in a horse. There 
is pride in his will; 

It is sweet to look back as you climb 
the steep hill. 

There is room. You have movement 
of limb; you have air, 

Have the smell of the wood, of the 
grasses; and then 




3&ome 


339 


What comfort to rest, as you lie 
thrown full length 

All night and alone, with your fists 
full of strength! 

Go away, go away with your bitter¬ 
sweet pain 

Of love; for love is the story of 
troubles, 


Of troubles and love, that travel to¬ 
gether 

The round world round. Behold the 
bubbles 

Of love! Then troubles and turbu¬ 
lent weather. 

Why, man had all Eden! Then love, 
then Cain! 


ROME 


I 

Some leveled hills, a wall, a dome 
That lords its gold cross to the skies, 
While at its base a beggar cries 
For bread, and dies, and—this is 
Rome. 

II 

Yet Rome is Rome, and Rome she 
must 

And shall remain beside her gates, 
And tribute take of Kings and 
States, 

Until the stars have fallen to dust. 


III 

Yea, Time on yon Campagnan 
plain 

Has pitched in siege his battle-tents; 

And round about her battlements 

Has marched and trumpeted in 
vain. 

IV 

These skies are Rome! The very 
loam 

Lifts up and speaks in Roman pride; 

And Time, outfaced and still defied, 

Sits by and wags his beard at Rome. 


ATTILA’S THRONE, TORCELLO 


I do recall some sad days spent 
By borders of the Orient, 

’Twould make a tale. It matters not. 
I sought the loneliest seas; I sought 
The solitude of ruins, and forgot 
Mine own life and my littleness 
Before this fair land’s mute distress. 

Slow sailing through the reedy 
isles, 


Some sunny summer yesterdays, 

I watched the storied yellow sail, 
And lifted prow of steely mail; 

’Tis all that’s left Torcello now,— 

A pirate’s yellow sail, a prow. 

I touch’d Torcello. Once on land, 
I took a sea-shell in my hand, 

And blew like any trumpeter. 

I felt the fig leaves lift and stir 






340 


Sttila’s ®f)nme, ®orceIlo 


On trees that reach from ruin’d wall 
Above my head,—but that was all. 
Back from the farther island shore 
Came echoes trooping—nothing more. 

By cattle paths grass-grown and 
worn, 

Through marbled streets all stain’d 
and torn 

By time and battle, lone I walk’d. 

A bent old beggar, white as one 
For better fruitage blossoming, 

Came on. And as he came he talk’d 
Unto himself; for there were none 
In all his island, old and dim, 

To answer back or question him. 

I turn’d, retraced my steps once 
more. 

The hot miasma steam’d and rose 
In deadly vapor from the reeds 
That grew from out the shallow shore, 
Where peasants say the sea-horse 
feeds, 

And Neptune shapes his horn and 
blows. 

Yet here stood Adria once, and 
here 

Attila came with sword and flame, 
And set his throne of hollow’d stone 
In her high mart. And it remains 
Still lord o’er all. Where once the 
tears 

Of mute petition fell, the rains 
Of heaven fall. Lo! all alone 
There lifts this massive empty 
throne. 

I climb’d and sat that throne of 
stone 


To contemplate, to dream, to reign— 
Ay, reign above myself; to call 
The people of the past again 
Before me as I sat alone 
In all my kingdom. There were 
kine 

That browsed along the reedy brine, 
And now and then a tusky boar 
Would shake the high reeds of the 
shore, 

A bird blow by,—but that was all. 

I watch’d the lonesome sea-gull 
pass. 

I did remember and forget,— 

The past roll’d by; I lived alone. 

I sat the shapely, chisell’d stone 
That stands in tall, sweet grasses 
set; 

Ay, girdled deep in long, strong grass, 
And green alfalfa. Very fair 
The heavens were, and still and 
blue, 

For Nature knows no changes there. 
The Alps of Venice, far away, 

Like some half-risen late moon lay. 

How sweet the grasses at my feet! 
The smell of clover over-sweet. 

I heard the hum of bees. The bloom 
Of clover-tops and cherry-trees 
Was being rifled by the bees, 

And these were building in a tomb. 
The fair alfalfa—such as has 
Usurp’d the Occident, and grows 
With all the sweetness of the rose 
On Sacramento’s sundown hills— 

Is there, and that dead island fills 
With fragrance. Yet the smell of 
death 

Comes riding in on every breath. 


( 



^enttc 


34i 


That sad, sweet fragrance. It had 
sense, 

And sound, and voice. It was a 
part 

Of that which had possess’d my 
heart, 

And would not of my will go hence, 

’Twas Autumn’s breath; sad as the 
kiss 

Of some sweet worshipp’d woman is. 

Some snails had climb’d the throne 
and writ 

Their silver monograms on it 

In unknown tongues. I sat thereon, 

I dream'd until the day was gone; 

I blew again my pearly shell,— 

Blew long and strong, and loud and 
well; 


I puff’d my cheeks, I blew as when 
Horn’d satyrs piped and danced as 
men. 

Some mouse-brown cows that fed 
within 

Look’d up. A cowherd rose hard by, 
My single subject, clad in skin, 

Nor yet half-clad. I caught his eye,— 
He stared at me, then turn’d and 
fled. 

He frighten’d fled, and as he ran, 
Like wild beast from the face of man 
Back o’er his shoulder threw his head. 
He stopp’d, and then this subject 
true, 

Mine only one in all the isle, 

Turn’d round, and, with a fawning 
smile, 

Came back and ask'd me for a sou! 


VENICE 


City at sea, thou art surely an ark, 

Sea-blown and a-wreck in the rain 
and dark, 

Where the white sea-caps are so toss’d 
and curl’d. 

Thy sins they were many—and be¬ 
hold the flood! 

And here and about us are beasts in 
stud. 

Creatures and beasts that creep and 
go, 

Enough, ay, and wicked enough I 
know, 

To populate, or devour, a world. 

O wrinkled old lion, looking down 

With brazen frown upon mine and me. 


From tower a-top of your watery 
town, 

Old king of the desert, once king of 
the sea: 

List! here is a lesson for thee to-day. 

Proud and immovable monarch, I 
say, 

Lo! here is a lesson to-day for thee, 

Of the things that were and the things 
to be. 

Dank palaces held by the populous 
sea 

For the good dead men, all co\er’d 
with shell,— 

We will pay them a visit some day; 
and we, 




342 


& hailstorm in Venice 


We may come to love their old 
palaces well. 

Bah! toppled old columns all tumbled 
across, 

Toss’d in the waters that lift and fall, 

Waving in waves long masses of 
moss, 

Toppled old columns,—and that will 
be all. 

I know you, lion of gray Saint 
Mark; 

You flutter’d all seas beneath your 
wing. 

Now, over the deep, and up in the 
dark, 

High over the girdles of bright 
gaslight, 

With wings in the air as if for 
flight, 

And crouching as if about to spring 

From top of your granite of Africa,— 

Say, what shall be said of you some 
day? 

What shall be said, O grim Saint 
Mark, 

Savage old beast so cross’d and 
churl’d, 


By the after-men from the under¬ 
world ? 

What shall be said as they search 
along 

And sail these seas for some sign or 
spark 

Of the old dead fires of the dear old 
days, 

When men and story have gone their 
ways, 

Or even your city and name from 
song? 

Why, sullen old monarch of still'd 
Saint Mark, 

Strange men of my West, wise- 
mouth ’d and strong, 

Will come some day and, gazing 
long 

And mute with wonder, will say of 
thee: 

“This is the Saint! High over the 
dark, 

Foot on the Bible and great teeth 
bare, 

Tail whipp’d back and teeth in the 
air— 

Lo! this is the Saint, and none but 
he!” 


A HAILSTORM IN VENICE 


The hail like cannon-shot struck 
the sea 

And churn’d it white as a creamy 
foam; 

Then hail like battle-shot struck 
where we 

Stood looking a-sea from a sea-girt 
home— 


Came shooting askance as if shot at 
the head; 

Then glass flew shiver’d and men fell 
down 

And pray'd where they fell, and the 
gray old town 

Lay riddled and helpless as if shot 
dead. 


( 




ibanta JWatta: Corcello 


343 


Then lightning right full in the 
eyes! and then 

Fair women fell down flat on the 
face, 

And pray’d their pitiful Mother with 
tears, 

And pray’d black death as a hiding- 
place; 


And good priests pray’d for the sea- 
bound men 

As never good priests had pray’d for 
years. . . . 

Then God spake thunder! And then 
the rain! 

The great, white, beautiful, high¬ 
born rain! 


SANTA MARIA: TORCELLO 


And yet again through the watery 
miles 

Of reeds I row’d, till the desolate 
isles 

Of the black-bead makers of Venice 
were not. 

I touch’d where a single sharp tower is 
shot 

To heaven, and torn by thunder and 
rent 

As if it had been Time’s battlement. 

A city lies dead, and this great grave¬ 
stone 

Stands on its grave like a ghost 
alone. 

Some cherry-trees grow here, and 
here 

An old church, simple and severe 

In ancient aspect, stands alone 

Amid the ruin and decay, all grown 

In moss and grasses. Old and 
quaint, 

With antique cuts of martyr’d 
saint, 

The gray church stands with stooping 
knees, 

Defying the decay of seas. 


Her pictured hell, with flames 
blown high, 

In bright mosaics wrought and 
set 

When men first knew the Nubian 
art; 

Her bearded saints as black as 
jet; 

Her quaint Madonna, dim with 
rain 

And touch of pious lips of pain, 

So touch’d my lonesome soul, that I 

Gazed long, then came and gazed 
again, 

And loved, and took her to my 
heart. 

Nor monk in black, nor Capucin, 

Nor priest of any creed was seen. 

A sunbrown’d woman, old and 
tall, 

And still as any shadow is, 

Stole forth from out the mossy wall 

With massive keys to show me 
this: 

Came slowly forth, and, following, 

Three birds—and all with drooping 
wing. 




344 


3fit a (flcmbola 


Three mute brown babes of hers; 
and they— 

Oh, they were beautiful as sleep, 

Or death, below the troubled deep! 
And on the pouting lips of these, 

Red corals of the silent seas, 

Sweet birds, the everlasting seal 
Of silence that the God has set 
On this dead island sits for aye. 

I would forget, yet not forget 
Their helpless eloquence. They 
creep 

Somehow into my heart, and keep 
One bleak, cold corner, jewel set. 
They steal my better self away 
To them, as little birds that day 
Stole fruits from out the cherry- 
trees. 

So helpless and so wholly still, 

So sad, so wrapt in mute surprise, 


IN A C 

’Twas night in Venice. Then down 
to the tide, 

Where a tall and a shadowy gondo¬ 
lier 

Lean’d on his oar, like a lifted 
spear;— 

’Twas night in Venice; then side by 
side 

We sat in his boat. Then oar 
a-trip 

On the black boat’s keel, then dip 
and dip, 

These boatmen should build their 
boats more wide, 


That I did love, despite my will. 

One little maid of ten—such eyes, 

So large and lovely, so divine! 

Such pouting lips, such pearly cheek 
Did lift her perfect eyes to mine, 
Until our souls did touch and 
speak— 

Stood by me all that perfect day, 

Yet not one sweet word could she 
say. 

She turn’d her melancholy eyes 
So constant to my own, that I 
Forgot the going clouds, the sky; 
Found fellowship, took bread and 
wine: 

And so her little soul and mine 
Stood very near together there. 

And oh, I found her very fair! 

Yet not one soft word could she 
say: 

What did she think of all that day? 


For we were together, and side by 
side. 

The sea it was level as seas of 
light, 

As still as the light ere a hand was 
laid 

To the making of lands, or the seas 
were made. 

'Twas fond as a bride on her bridal 
night 

When a great love swells in her soul 
like a sea, 

And makes her but less than divinity. 




Capucin of 3&ome 


345 


’Twas night,—The soul of the day, I 
wis. 

A woman’s face hiding from her first 
kiss. 

. . Ah, how one wanders! Yet 
after it all, 

1 o laugh at all lovers and to learn to 
scoff. . . . 

When you really have naught of 
account to say, 

It is better, perhaps, to pull leaves by 
the way; 

Watch the round moon rise, or the red 
stars fall; 

And then, too, in Venice! dear, moth- 
eaten town; 

One palace of pictures; great frescoes 
spill’d down 


Outside the walls from the fullness 
thereof:— 

’Twas night in Venice. On o’er 
the tide— 

These boats they are narrow as they 
can be, 

These crafts they are narrow enough, 
and we, 

To balance the boat, sat side by 
side— 

Out under the arch of the Bridge of 
Sighs, 

On under the arch of the star-sown 
skies; 

We two were together on the Adrian 
Sea,— 

The one fair woman of the world to 
me. 


THE CAPUCIN OF ROME 


Only a basket for fruits or bread 

And the bits you divide with your 
dog, which you 

Had left from your dinner. The 
round year through 

He never once smiles. He bends his 
head 

To the scorn of men. He gives the 
road 

To the grave ass groaning beneath his 
load. 

He is ever alone. Lo! never a hand 

Is laid in his hand through the whole 
wid.e land, 

Save when a man dies, and he shrives 
him home. 

And that is the Capucin monk of 
Rome. 


He coughs, he is hump’d, and he 
hobbles about 

In sandals of wood. Then a hempen 
cord 

Girdles his loathsome gown. 
Abhorr’d! 

Ay, lonely, indeed, as a leper cast 
out. 

One gown in three years! and—bah! 
how he smells! 

He slept last night in his coffin of 
stone, 

This monk that coughs, this skin 
and bone, 

This living dead corpse from the 
damp, cold cells,— 

Go ye where the Pincian, half-level’d 
down, 






346 


®fje Capucitt of Borne 


Slopes slow to the south. These 
men in brown 

Have a monkery there, quaint, 
builded of stone; 

And, living or dead, 'tis the brown 
men’s home,— 

These dead brown monks who are 
living in Rome! 

You will hear wood sandals on the 
sanded floor; 

A cough, then the lift of a latch, then 
the door 

Groans open, and—horror! Four 
walls of stone 

All gorgeous with flowers and frescoes 
of bone! 

There are bones in the corners and 
bones on the wall; 

And he barks like a dog that watches 
his bone, 

This monk in brown from his bed of 
stone— 

He barks, and he coughs, and that is 
all. 

At last he will cough as if up from his 
cell; 

Then strut with considerable pride 
about, 

And lead through his blossoms of 
bone, and smell 

Their odors; then talk, as he points 
them out, 

Of the virtues and deeds of the gents 
who wore 

The respective bones but the year 
before. 

Then he thaws at last, ere the bones 
are through, 


And talks right well as he turns them 
about 

And stirs up a most unsavory smell; 

Yea, talks of his brown dead brothers, 
till you 

Wish them, as they are, no doubt, in 
—well, 

A very deep well. . . . And that may 
be why, 

As he shows you the door and bows 
good-by, 

That he bows so low for a franc or 
two, 

To shrive their souls and to get them 
out— 

These bony brown men who have 
their home, 

Dead or alive, in their cells at 
Rome. 


What good does he do in the world? 
Ah! well, 

Now that is a puzzler. . . . But, 
listen! He prays. 

His life is the fast of the forty days. 

He seeks the despised; he divides the 
bread 

That he begg’d on his knees, does this 
old shavehead. 

And then, when the thief and the 
beggar fell! 

And then, when the terrible plague 
came down, 

Christ, how we cried to these men in 
brown 

When other men fled! Ah, who then 

was seen 

Stand firm to the death like the 
Capucin? 




FROM SHADOWS OF SHASTA, 1881 




347 











MOUNT SHASTA 


To lord all Godland! lift the brow 
Familiar to the moon, to top 
The universal world, to prop 
The hollow heavens up, to vow 
Stern constancy with stars, to 
keep 

Eternal watch while eons sleep; 

To tower proudly up and touch 
God’s purple garment-hems that 
sweep 

The cold blue north! Oh, this were 
much! 

A LAND THAT MAN 

A land that man has newly trod, 

A land that only God has known, 
Through all the soundless cycles 
flown. 

Yet perfect blossoms bless the sod, 
And perfect birds illume the 
trees 

And perfect unheard harmonies 
Pour out eternally to God. 


Where storm-born shadows hide and 
hunt 

I knew thee, in thy glorious youth, 

And loved thy vast face, white as truth. 

I stood where thunderbolts were wont 

To smite thy Titan-fashioned front, 

And heard dark mountains rock and 
roll; 

I saw the lighting’s gleaming rod 

Reach forth and write on heaven’s 
scroll 

The awful autograph of God! 

HAS NEWLY TROD 

A thousand miles of mighty wood 
Where thunder-storms stride fire- 
shod; 

A thousand flowers every rod, 

A stately tree on every rood; 

Ten thousand leaves on every tree, 
And each a miracle to me; 

And yet there be men who question 
God! 


THE MOUNTAINS 


The mountains from that fearful first 
Named day were God’s own house. 
Behold, 

’Twas here dread Sinai’s thunders 
burst 


And showed His face. ’Twas here of 
old 

His prophets dwelt. Lo, it was here 
The Christ did come when death drew 
near. 


349 





350 


Jfor tfje JUgfjt 


Give me God’s wondrous upper world 
That makes familiar with the moon; 
These stony altars, they have hurled 

FOR THE 

‘‘For the Right! as God has given 
Man to see the Maiden Right!" 

For the Right, through thickest 
night, 

Till the man-brute Wrong be driven 
From high places; till the Right 
Shall lift like some grand beacon 
light. 


Oppression back, have kept the boon 
Of liberty. Behold, how free 
The mountains stand, and eternally. 

RIGHT 

For the Right! Love, Right and 
Duty; 

Lift the world up, though you 
fall 

Heaped with dead before the wall; 
God can find a soul of beauty 
Where it falls, as gems of worth 
Are found by miners dark in earth. 


O, THE MOCKERY OF PITY 


O, the mockery of pity! 

Weep with fragrant handker¬ 
chief, 

In pompous luxury of grief, 

Selfish, hollow-hearted city? 


O these money-getting times! 

What’s a heart for? What’s a 
hand, 

But to seize and shake the land, 
Till it tremble for its crimes? 


O TRANQUIL MOON 


O tranquil moon! O pitying moon! 
Put forth thy cool, protecting 
palms, 

And cool their eyes with cooling 
alms, 

Against the burning tears of noon. 


O saintly, noiseless-footed nun! 

O sad-browed patient mother, keep 
Thy homeless children while they 
sleep, 

And kiss them, weeping, every 
one. 






LOG CABIN LINES 


351 








V 



4 

THE SOLDIERS’ HOME, WASHINGTON 


The monument, tipped with elec¬ 
tric fire, 

Blazed high in a halo of light below 

My low cabin door in the hills that 
inspire; 

And the dome of the Capitol gleamed 
like snow 

In a glory of light, as higher and 
higher 

This wondrous creation of man was 
sent 

To challenge the lights of the firma¬ 
ment. 

A tall man, tawny and spare as 
bone, 

With battered old hat and with feet 
half bare, 

With the air of a soldier that was all 
his own— 

Aye, something more than a soldier’s 
air— 

Came clutching a staff, with a face 
like .stone; 

Limped in through my gate—and I 
thought to beg— 

Tight clut? hing a staff, slow dragging 
a leg. 

The bent new moon, like a simitar, 

Kept peace in Heaven. All earth lay 
still. 

Some sentinel stars stood watch 
afar, 


Some crickets kept clanging along the 
hill, 

As the tall, stern relic of blood and 
war 

Limped in, and, with hand up to brow 
half raised, 

Limped up, looked about, as one 
dazed or crazed. 

His gaunt face pleading for food 
and rest, 

His set lips white as a tale of shame, 

His black coat tight to a shirtless 
breast, 

His black eyes burning in mine-like 
flame; 

But never a word from his set lips 
came 

As he whipped in line his battered old 
leg, 

And his knees made mouths, and as if 
to beg. 

Aye! black were his eyes; but 
doubtful and dim 

Their vision of beautiful earth, I 
think. 

And I doubt if the distant, dear 
worlds to him 

Were growing brighter as he neared 
the brink 

Of dolorous seas where phantom ships 
swim. 


23 


353 



354 


®fje ikiltuerg' $ome, ©Hagfjingtan 


For his face was as hard as the hard, 
thin hand 

That clutched that staff like an iron 
band. 

“ Sir, I am a soldier! ” The battered 
old hat 

Stood up as he spake, like to one on 
parade— 

Stood taller and braver as he spake 
out that— 

And the tattered old coat, that was 
tightly laid 

To the battered old breast, looked so 
trim thereat 

That I knew the mouths of the bat¬ 
tered old leg 

That had opened wide were not made 
to beg. 

“I have wandered and wandered 
this twenty year, 

Searched up and down for my regi¬ 
ments. 

Have they gone to that field where no 
foes appear? 

Have they pitched in Heaven their 
cloud-white tents? 

Or, tell me, my friend, shall I find 
them here 

On the hill beyond, at the Soldiers’ 
Home, 

Where the weary soldiers have ceased 
to roam? 

“Aye, I am a soldier and a briga¬ 
dier; 

Is this the way to the Soldiers’ Home? 

There is plenty and rest for us all, I 
hear, 


And a bugler, bidding us cease to 
roam, 

Rides over the hill all the livelong 
year— 

Rides calling and calling the brave to 
come 

And rest and rest in that Soldier’s 
Home. 

“Is this, sir, the way? I wandered 
in here 

J ust as one oft will at the close of day. 

Aye, I am a soldier, and a brigadier! 

Now, the Soldiers’ Home, sir. Is 
this the way? 

I have wandered and wandered this 
twenty year, 

Seeking some trace of my regiments 

Sabered and riddled and tom to rents. 

“Aye, I am a soldier and a briga¬ 
dier! 

A battered old soldier in the dusk of 
his day; 

But you don’t seem to heed, or you 
don’t seem to hear, 

Though, meek as I may, I ask for the 
way 

To the Soldiers’ Home, which must 
be quite near, 

While under your oaks, in your easy 
chair, 

You sit and you sit, and you stare 
and you stare. 

“What battle? What deeds did I 
do in the fight? 

Why, sir, I have seen green fields 
turn as red 

As yonder red town in that marvelous 
light! 



355 


®fjc Hxilbiers’ J^ome, (Washington 


Then the great blazing guns! Then 
the ghastly white dead— 

But, tell me, I faint, I must cease to 
roam! 

This battered leg aches! Then this 
sabered old head— 

Is— is this the way to the Soldiers’ 
Home? 

“Why, I hear men say ’t is a Para¬ 
dise 

On the green oak hills by the great 
red town; 

That many old comrades shall meet 
my eyes; 

That a tasseled young trooper rides 
up and rides down, 

With bugle horn blowing to the still 
blue skies, 

Rides calling and calling us to rest 
and to stay 

In that Soldiers’ Home. Sir, is this 
the way? 

“My leg is so lame! Then this 
sabered old head— 

Ah! pardon me, sir, I never complain; 

But the road is so rough, as I just 
now said; 

And then there is this something that 
troubles my brain. 

It makes the light dance from yon 
Capitol’s dome; 

It makes the road dim as I doubtfully 
tread— 

And—sir, is this the way to the 
Soldiers’ Home? 

“From the first to the last in that 
desperate war— 

Why, I did my part. If I did not fall, 


A hair’s breadth measure of this skull- 
bone scar 

Was all that was wanting; and then 
this ball— 

But what cared I? Ah! better by far 

Have a sabered old head and a shat¬ 
tered old knee 

To the end, than not had the praise 
of Lee- 

“What! What do I hear? No 
home there for me? 

Why, I heard men say that the war 
was at end! 

Oh, my head swims so.- and I scarce 
can see! 

But a soldier’s a soldier, I think, my 
friend, 

Wherever that soldier may chance to 
be! 

And wherever a soldier may chance to 
roam, 

Why, a Soldiers’ Home is a soldier’s 
home!” 

He turned as to go; but he sank to 
the grass; 

And I lifted my face to the firmament; 

For I saw a sentinel white star 
pass, 

Leading the way the old soldier 
went. 

And the light shone bright from the 
Capitol’s dome, 

Ah, brighter from Washington’s 
monument, 

Lighting his way to the Soldiers, 
Home. 

The Cabin, Washington, D. C. 




356 


©libe 


OLIVE 


Dove-horne symbol, olive bough; 
Dove-hued sign from God to men, 
As if still the dove and thou 
Kept companionship as then. 


Dove-hued, holy branch of peace, 
Antique, all-enduring tree; 

Deluge and the floods surcease— 
Deluge and Gethsemane. 


THE BATTLE FLAG AT SHENANDOAH 


The tented field wore a wrinkled 
frown, 

And the emptied church from the hill 
looked down 

On the emptied road and the emptied 
town, 

That summer Sunday morning. 

And here was the blue, and there 
was the gray; 

And a wide green valley rolled away * 

Between where the battling armies 

lay, 

That sacred Sunday morning. 

And Custer sat, with impatient 
will, 

His restless horse, ’mid his troopers 
still, 

As he watched with glass from the 
oak-set hill, 

That silent Sunday morning. 

Then fast he began to chafe and to 
fret; 

“ There’s a battle flag on a bayonet 

Too close to my own true soldiers set 

For peace this Sunday morning!” 

“Ride over, some one,” he haught¬ 
ily said, 


“And bring it to me! Why, in bars 
blood red 

And in stars I will stain it, and over¬ 
head 

Will flaunt it this Sunday morning!” 

Then a West-born lad, pale-faced 
and slim, 

Rode out, and touching his cap to 
him, 

Swept down, swept swift as Spring 
swallows swim, 

That anxious Sunday morning. 

On, on through the valley! up, up, 
anywhere! 

That pale-faced lad like a bird 
through the air 

Kept on till he climbed to the banner 
there 

That bravest Sunday morning! 

And he caught up the flag, and 
around his waist 

He wound it tight, and he turned in 
haste, 

And swift his perilous route retraced 

That daring Sunday morning. 

All honor and praise to the trusty 
steed! 




®f)e ILotft Regiment 357 


Ah! boy, and banner, and all God 
speed! 

God’s pity for you in your hour of 
need 

This deadly Sunday morning. 

O, deadly shot! and O, shower of 
lead! 

O, iron rain on the brave, bare 
head! 

Why, even the leaves from the trees 
fall dead 

This dreadful Sunday morning! 

But he gains the oaks! Men cheer 
in their might! 

Brave Custer is laughing in his de¬ 
light! 

THE LOST 

The dying land cried; they heard 
her death-call, 

These bent old men stopped, listened 
intent; 

Then rusty old muskets rushed down 
from the wall, 

And squirrel-guns gleamed in that 
regiment, 

And grandsires marched, old muskets 
in hand— 

The last men left in the old South¬ 
land. 

The gray grandsires! They were 
seen to reel, 

Their rusty old muskets a wearisome 
load; 

They marched, scarce tall as the 
cannon’s wheel, 


Why, he is embracing the boy outright 

This glorious Sunday morning! 

But, soft! Not a word has the pale 
boy said. 

He unwinds the flag. It is starred, 
striped, red 

With his heart’s best blood; and he 
falls down dead, 

In God’s still Sunday morning. 

So, wrap this flag to his soldier’s 
breast: 

Into stars and stripes it is stained and 
blest; 

And under the oaks let him rest and 
rest 

Till God’s great Sunday morning. 

REGIMENT 

Marched stooping on up the corduroy 
road; 

These gray old boys, all broken and 
bent, 

Marched out, the gallant last regi¬ 
ment. 

But oh! that march through the 
cypress trees, 

When zest and excitement had died 
away! 

That desolate march through the 
marsh to the knees— 

The gray moss mantling the battered 
and gray— 

These gray grandsires all broken and 
bent— 

The gray moss mantling the regi¬ 
ment. 




358 


®Jje Host Regiment 


The gray bent men and the mosses 
gray; 

The dull dead gray of the uniform! 

The dull dead skies, like to lead that 
day, 

Dull, dead, heavy and deathly warm! 

Oh, what meant more than the cy¬ 
press meant, 

With its mournful moss, to that regi¬ 
ment? 

That deadly march through the 
marshes deep! 

That sultry day and the deeds in 
vain! 

The rest on the cypress roots, the 
sleep— 

The sleeping never to rise again! 

The rust on the gims; the rust and 
the rent— 

That dying and desolate regiment! 

The muskets left leaning against 
the trees, 

The cannon-wheels clogged from the 
moss o’er head, 

The cypress trees bending on obsti¬ 
nate knees 

As gray men kneeling by the gray 
men dead! 

A lone bird rising, long legged and 
gray, 

Slow rising and rising and drifting 
away. 

The dank dead mosses gave back 
no sound, 

The drums lay silent as the drummers 
there; 

The sultry stillness it was so profound 


You might have heard an unuttered 
prayer; 

And ever and ever and far away, 

Kept drifting that desolate bird in 
gray. 

The long gray shrouds of that cy¬ 
press wood, 

Like vails that sweep where the gray 
nuns weep— 

That cypress moss o’er the dankness 
deep, 

Why, the cypress roots they were 
running blood; 

And to right and to left lay an old 
man dead— 

A mourning cypress set foot and head. 

'Twas man hunting man in the 
wilderness there; 

’Twas man hunting man and hunting 
to slay, 

But nothing was found but death 
that day, 

And possibly God—and that bird in 
gray 

Slow rising and rising and drifting 
away. 

Now down in the swamp where the 
gray men fell 

The fireflies volley and volley at 
night, 

And black men belated are heard to 
tell 

Of the ghosts in gray in a mimic 
—fight 

Of the ghosts of the gallant old men 
in gray 

Who silently died in the swamp that 
day. 








Jletopott i&etosi 359 

NEWPORT NEWS 


The huge sea monster, the “ Merri- 
mac"; 

The mad sea monster, the “Moni¬ 
tor”; 

You may sweep the sea, peer forward 
and back, 

But never a sign or a sound of 
war. 

A vulture or two in the heavens 
blue; 

A sweet town building, a boatman’s 
call: 

The far sea-song of a pleasure 
crew; 

The sound of hammers. And that is 
all. 


And where are the monsters that 
tore this main? 

And where are the monsters that 
shook this shore? 

The sea grew mad! And the shore 
shot flame! 

The mad sea monsters they are no 
more. 

The palm, and the pine, and the sea 
sands brown; 

The far sea songs of the pleasure 
crews; 

The air like balm in this building 
town— 

And that is the picture of Newport 
News. 


THE COMING OF SPRING 


My own and my only Love some 
night 

Shall keep her tryst, shall come from 
the South, 

And oh, her robe of magnolia white! 

And oh, and oh, the breath of her 
mouth! 

And oh, her grace in the grasses 
sweet! 

And oh, her love in the leaves new 
born! 

And oh, and oh, her lily-white feet 

Set daintily down in the dew-wet 
morn! 

The drowsy cattle at night shall 
kneel 

And give God thanks, and shall dream 
and rest; 


The stars slip down and a golden seal 

Be set on the meadows my Love has 
blest. 

Come back, my Love, come sud¬ 
den, come soon. 

The world lies waiting as the cold 
dead lie; 

The frightened winds wail and the 
crisp-curled moon 

Rides, wrapped in clouds, up the cold 
gray sky. 

Oh, Summer, my Love, my first, 
last Love! 

I sit all day by Potomac here, 

Waiting and waiting the voice of the 
dove; 

Waiting my darling, my ov 7 n, my dear. 

The Cabin, Washington, D. C. 




360 


Summer jttoons at Jtlount Vernon 

SUMMER MOONS AT MOUNT VERNON 


Such musky smell of maiden night! 
Such bridal bough, like orange tree! 
Such wondrous stars! Yon lily 
moon 

Seems like some long-lost afternoon! 

More perfect than a string of pearls 
We hold the full days of the year; 

The days troop by like flower girls, 
And all the days are ours here. 

THE POEM BY 

Paine! The Prison of France! 

• Lafayette! 

The Bastile key to our Washington, 
Whose feet on the necks of tyrants 
set 

Shattered their prisons every one. 

The key hangs here on his white walls 
high, 

That all shall see, that none shall 
forget 

What tyrants have been, what they 
may be yet; 

And the Potomac rolling by. 

WASHINGTON BY 

The snow was red with patriot 
blood, 

The proud foe tracked the blood-red 
snow. 

The flying patriots crossed the flood 
A tattered, shattered band of woe. 
Forlorn each barefoot hero stood, 
With bare head bended low. 


Here youth must learn; here age may 
live 

Full tide each day the year can give. 

No frosted wall, no frozen hasp, 

Shuts Nature’s book from us today; 

Her palm leaves lift too high to clasp; 

Her college walls, the milky way. 

The light is with us! Read and lead! 

The larger book, the loftier deed! 

THE POTOMAC 

On Washington’s walls let it rust 
and rust, 

And tell its story of blood and of tears, 

That Time still holds to the Poet’s 
trust, 

To people his pages for years and 
years. 

The monstrous shape on the white 
walls high, 

Like a thief in chains let it rot and 
rust— 

Its kings and adorers crowned in dust: 

And the Potomac rolling by. 

THE DELAWARE 

“Let us cross back! Death waits 
us here: 

Recross or die!” the chieftain said. 

A famished soldier dropped a tear— 

A tear that froze as it was shed: 

For oh, his starving babes were 
dear— 

They had but this for bread! 





®!)e $rab£srt Pattle 


361 


A captain spake: “It cannot be! 
These bleeding men, why, what could 
they? 

’Twould be as snowflakes in a sea!” 
The worn chief did not heed or say. 
He set his firm lips silently, 

Then turned aside to pray. 

And as he kneeled and prayed to 
God, 

God’s finger spun the stars in space; 
He spread his banner blue and broad, 
He dashed the dead sun’s stripes in 
place, 

Till war walked heaven fire shod 
And lit the chieftain’s face: 

Till every soldier’s heart was stirred, 
Till every sword shook in its sheath— 
“Up! up! Face back. But not one 
word!” 


God’s flag above; the ice beneath— 
They crossed so still, they only heard 
The icebergs grinding their teeth! 

Ho! Hessians, hirelings at meat 
While praying patriots hunger so! 
Then, bang! Boom! Bang! Death 
and defeat! 

And blood? Ay, blood upon the 
snow! 

Yet not the blood of patriot feet, 

But heart’s blood of the foe! 

O ye who hunger and despair! 

O ye who perish for the sun, 

Look up and dare, for God is there; 
And man can do what man has 
done! 

Think, think of darkling Delaware! 
Think, think of Washington! 


THE BRAVEST BATTLE 


The bravest battle that ever was 
fought; 

Shall I tell you where and when? 

On the maps of the world you will 
find it not; 

It was fought by the mothers of 
men. 

Nay, not with cannon or battle shot, 

With sword or braver pen; 

Nay, not with eloquent word or 
thought, 

From mouths of wonderful men. 

But deep in a woman’s walled-up 
heart— 


Of woman that would not yield, 

But patiently, silently bore her part— 

Lo! there in that battle-field. 

No marshaling troop, no bivouac 
song; 

No banners to gleam and wave; 

And oh! these battles they last so 
long— 

From babyhood to the grave! 

Yet, faithful still as a bridge of stars, 

She fights in her walled-up town— 

Fights on and on in the endless 
wars, 

Then silent, unseen—goes down. 






















THE ULTIMATE WEST 

My Mountains still are free! 

They hurl oppression hack; 

They keep the boon of liberty. 


363 












TO JUANITA 


You will come my bird, Bonita? 
Come! For I by steep and stone 
Have built such nest for you, Juanita, 
As not eagle bird hath known. 

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus! 
Rude, as all roads I have trod— 

Yet are steeps and stone-strewn 
passes 

Smooth o’erhead, and nearest God. 

Here black thunders of my canon 
Shake its walls in Titan wars! 

Here white sea-born clouds com¬ 
panion 

With such peaks as know the stars! 

Here madrona, manzanita— 

Here the snarling chaparral 
House and hang o’er steeps, Juanita, 
Where the gaunt wolf loved to dwell! 

Dear, I took these trackless masses 
Fresh from Him who fashioned them; 
Wrought in rock, and hewed fair 
passes, 

Flower set, as sets a gem. 

Aye, I built in woe. God willed it; 
Woe that passeth ghosts of guilt; 


Yet I built as His birds builded— 
Builded, singing as I built. 

All is finished! Roads of flowers 
Wait your loyal little feet. 

All completed? Nay, the hours 
Till you come are incomplete. 

Steep below me lies the valley, 
Deep below me lies the town, 

Where great sea-ships ride and rally, 
And the world walks up and down. 

O, the sea of lights far streaming 
When the thousand flags are furled— 
When the gleaming bay lies dreaming 
As it duplicates the world! 

You will come, my dearest, truest? 
Come my sovereign queen of ten; 

My blue skies will then be bluest; 

My white rose be whitest then: 

Then the song! Ah, then the saber 
Flashing up the walls of night! 

Hate of wrong and love of neighbor— 
Rhymes of battle for the Right! 

The Hights, Cal. 


365 





366 


California’s insurrection 

CALIFORNIA’S RESURRECTION 


The rain! The rain! The generous 
rain! 

All things are his who knows to 
wait. 

Behold the rainbow bends again 

Above the storied, gloried Gate— 
God’s written covenant to men 
In Tyrian tints on cloth of gold, 

Such as no tongue or pen hath 
told! 

Behold brown grasses where you 
pass— 

A sleeping lion’s tawny mane, 


Brown-breasted Mother Earth in 
pain 

Of travail—God’s forgiving grass 
Long three days dead to rise again 
To lead us upward, on and on— 

Each blade a shining saber drawn. 

Behold His Covenenat is true! 

Lo! California soon shall wear 
About her ample breast each hue 
That yonder hangs high-arched 
mid air! 

Behold the very grasses knew! 
Behold the Resurrection is! 

Behold what witness like to this? 


PLEASANT TO THE SIGHT 

“And God planted a garden eastward in Eden wherein He caused to grow every tree 
that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” 


Behold the tree, the lordly tree, 

That fronts the four winds of the 
storm, 

A fearless and defiant form 
That mocks wild winter merrily! 
Behold the beauteous, budding tree 
With censers swinging in the air, 
With arms in attitude of prayer, 
With myriad leaves, and every leaf 
A miracle of color, mold, 

More gorgeous than a house of 
gold! 

Each leaf a poem of God’s plan, 

Each leaf as from His book of old 
To build, to bastion man’s belief: 
Man’s love of God, man’s love of man. 

Aye, love His trees, leaf, trunk, or 
root, 


The comely, stately, upright grace 

That greets God’s rain with lifted 
face; 

The great, white beauteous, high¬ 
born rain 

That rides as white sails ride the main. 

That wraps alike leaf, trunk or shoot. 

When sudden thunder lights his 
torch 

And strides high Heaven’s ample 
porch. 

Aye, love God’s tree, leaf, branch and 
root. 

For God set first the pleasant tree; 

The “good for food” came tardily. 

The poor, blind hog knows but the 
fruit, 

And wallows in his fat and dies, 

A hog, up to his very eyes. 




e freest 

THE TREES 


3*7 


The trees they lean’d in their love 
unto trees, 

That lock’d in their loves, and were 
so made strong, 


Stronger than armies; ay, stronger 
than seas 

That rush from their caves in a 
storm of song. 


A HARD ROW FOR STUMPS 


You ask for manliest, martial deeds? 

Go back to Ohio’s natal morn— 

Go back to Kentucky’s fields of 
com; 

Just weeds and stumps and stumps 
and weeds! 

Just red men blazing from stump and 
tree 

Where buckskin’d prophets ’midst 
strife and stress 

Came crying, came dying in the 
wilderness, 

That hard, first, cruel half-century! 

What psalms they sang! what prayers 
they said, 

Cabin or camp, as the wheels 
rolled west; 

Silently leaving their bravest, 
best— 

Paving a Nation’s path with their 
dead! 

What unnamed battles! what thumps 
and bumps! 

What saber slashes with the broad, 
bright hoe! 

What weeds in phalanx! what 
stumps in row! 

What rank vines fortressed in rows 
of stumps! 


Just stumps and nettles and weed- 
choked corn 

Tiptoeing to wave but one blade in 
air! 

Dank milkweed here, and rank 
burdock there 

Besieging and storming that blade 
forlorn! 

Such weed-bred fevers, slow sapping 
the brave— 

The homesick heart and the aching 
head! 

The hoe and the hoe, ’till the man 
lay dead 

And the great west wheels rolled over 
his grave. 

And the saying grew, as sayings will 
grow 

From hard endeavor and bangs and 
bumps: 

“He got in a mighty hard row of 
stumps; 

But he tried, and died trying to hoe 
his row.” 

O braver and brighter this ten-pound 
hoe, 

Than brightest, broad saber of 
Waterloo! 

Nor ever fell soldier more truly true 





368 S 3&oto for Stumps* 


Than he who died trying to hoe his 
row. 

The weeds are gone and the stumps 
are gone— 

The huge hop-toad and the copper¬ 
head, 

And a million bent sabers flash 
triumph instead 

From stately, clean corn in the 
diamond-sown dawn. 

But the heroes have vanished, save 
here and there, 

Far out and afield like some storm- 
riven tree, 

Leans a last survivor of Ther¬ 
mopylae, 

Leafless and desolate, lone and bare. 

His hands are weary, put by the hoe; 

His ear is dull and his eyes are dim. 

Give honor to him and give place 
for him, 


For he bled and he led us, how long 
ago! 

And ye who inherit the fields he won, 

Lorn graves where the Wabash 
slips away, 

Go fashion green parks where your 
babes may play 

Unhindered of stumps or of weeds in 
sun. 

I have hewn some weeds, swung a 
heavy, broad hoe— 

Such weeds! such a mighty hard 
row for stumps! 

Such up-hill struggles, such down¬ 
hill slumps 

As you, please God, may never once 
know! 

But the sea lies yonder, just a league 
below, 

All down-hill now, and I go my 
way—■ 

Not far to go, and not much to say, 

Save that I tried, tried to hoe my row. 


THE GOLD THAT GREW BY SHASTA TOWN 


From Shasta town to Redding town 
The ground is tom by miners dead; 
The manzanita, rank and red, 

Drops dusty berries up and down 
Their grass-grown trails. Their silent 
mines 

Are wrapped in chaparral and vines; 
Yet one gray miner still sits down 
’Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta 
town. 

The quail pipes pleasantly. The 
hare 


Leaps careless o’er the golden oat 
That grows below the water moat; 
The lizard basks in sunlight there. 
The brown hawk swims the perfumed 
air 

Unfrightened through the livelong 
day; 

And now and then a curious bear 
Comes shuffling down the ditch by 
night, 

And leaves some wide, long tracks in 

clay 

So human-like, so stealthy light, 




®fje <©oIb tfiat <@reto bp ®oton 369 


Where one lone cabin still stoops 
down 

’Twixt Redding and sweet Shasta 
town. 

That great graveyard of hopes! of 
men 

Who sought for hidden veins of gold; 
Of young men suddenly grown old— 
Of old men dead, despairing when 
The gold was just within their hold! 
That storied land, whereon the light 
Of other days gleams faintly still; 
Somelike the halo of a hill 
That lifts above the falling night; 
That warm, red, rich and human 
land, 

That flesh-red soil, that warm red 
sand, 

Where one gray miner still sits down! 
’T wixt Redding and sweet Shasta 
town! 

“I know the vein is here! ” he said; 
For twenty years, for thirty years! 
While far away fell tears on tears 
From wife and babe who mourned 
him dead. 

No gold! No gold! And he grew 
old 

And crept to toil with bended head 
Amid a graveyard of his dead, 

Still seeking for that vein of gold. 

Then lo, came laughing down the 
years 

A sweet grandchild! Between his 
tears 

He laughed. He set her by the door 
The while he toiled; his day’s toil o’er 
He held her chubby cheeks between 


His hard palms, laughed; and laugh¬ 
ing cried. 

You should have seen, have heard 
and seen 

His boyish joy, his stout old pride, 
When toil was done and he sat down 
At night, below sweet Shasta town! 

At last his strength was gone. “No 
more! 

I mine no more. I plant me now 
A vine and fig-tree; worn and old, 

I seek no more my vein of gold. 

But, oh, I sigh to give it o’er; 

These thirty years of toil! somehow 
It seems so hard; but now, no more.’’ 

And so the old man set him down 
To plant, by pleasant Shasta town. 
And it was pleasant; piped the quail 
The full year through. The chip¬ 
munk stole, 

His whiskered nose and tossy tail 
Full buried in the sugar-bowl. 

And purple grapes and grapes of 
gold 

.Swung sweet as milk. While orange- 
trees 

Grew brown with laden honey-bees. 
Oh! it was pleasant up and down 
That vine-set hill of Shasta town. 


And then that cloud-burst came! 
Ah, me! 

That torn ditch there! The mellow 
land 

Rolled seaward like a rope of sand, 
Nor left one leafy vine or tree 


24 





370 )t <©olb tfjat (Sreto bp ^bas^ta ®oton 


Of all that Eden nestling down 
Below that moat by Shasta town! 

The old man sat his cabin’s sill, 
His gray head bowed to hands and 
knee; 

The child went forth, sang pleasantly, 
Where burst the ditch the day before, 
And picked some pebbles from the 
hill. 

The old man moaned, moaned o’er 
and o’er: 

“My babe is dowerless, and I 
Must fold my helpless hands and die! 
Ah, me! What curse comes ever 
down 

On me and mine at Shasta town.” 

“Good Grandpa, see!” the glad 
child said, 

And so leaned softly to his side,— 
Laid her gold head to his gray head, 
And merry voiced and cheery cried, 
“Good Grandpa, do not weep, but 
see! 


I’ve found a peck of orange seeds! 

I searched the hill for vine or tree; 
Not one!—not even oats or weeds; 
But, oh! such heaps of orange seeds! 

“Come, good Grandpa! Now, 
once you said 

That Gcd is good. So this may teach 
That we must plant each seed, and 

each 

May grow to be an orange tree. 

Now, good Grandpa, please raise 
your head, 

And please come plant the seeds with 
me.” 

And prattling thus, or like to this, 
The child thrust her full hands in his. 

He sprang, sprang upright as of old. 
“ ’Tis gold! ’tis gold! my hidden vein! 
’Tis gold for you, sweet babe, 'tis 
gold! 

Yea, God is good; we plant again!” 
So one old miner still sits down 
By pleasant, sunlit Shasta town. 


THE SIOUX CHIEF’S DAUGHTER 


Two gray hawks ride the rising blast; 
Dark cloven clouds drive to and fro 
By peaks pre-eminent in snow; 

A sounding river rushes past, 

So wild, so vortex-like, and vast. 

A lone lodge tops the windy hill; 

A tawny maiden, mute and still, 
Stands waiting at the river’s brink, 
As eager, fond as you can think. 

A mighty chief is at her feet; 


She does not heed him wooing so— 
She hears the dark, wild waters flow; 
She waits her lover, tall and fleet, 
From out far beaming hills of snow. 

He comes! The grim chief springs 
in air— 

His brawny arm, his blade is bare. 

She turns; she lifts her round, 
brown hand; 




37i 


®j)e g>toux Chief’s! Baugijtct 


She looks him fairly in the face; 

She moves her foot a little pace 
And says, with calmness and com¬ 
mand, 

“There’s blood enough in this lorn 
land. 

“But see! a test of strength and 
skill, 

Of courage and fierce fortitude; 

To breast and wrestle with the rude 
And storm-born waters, now I will 
Bestow you both. 

“ . . . Stand either side! 

And you, my burly chief, I know 
Would choose my right. Now peer 
you low 

Across the waters wild and wide. 

See! leaning so this morn I spied 
Red berries dip yon farther side. 

“See, dipping, dripping in the 
stream! 

Twin boughs of autumn berries 
gleam! 

“ Now this, brave men, shall be the 
test: 

Plunge in the stream, bear knife in 
teeth 

To cut yon bough for bridal wreath. 
Plunge in! and he who bears him best, 
And brings yon ruddy fruit to land 
The first, shall have both heart and 

hand.” 

Two tawny men, tall, brown and 
thewed 

Like antique bronzes rarely seen, 

Shot up like flame. 


She stood between 
Like fixed, impassive fortitude. 

Then one threw robes with sullen air, 
And wound red fox-tails in his hair; 
But one with face of proud delight 
Entwined a wing of snowy white. 

She stood between. She sudden 
gave 

The sign and each impatient brave 
Shot sudden in the sounding wave; 
The startled waters gurgled round; 
Their stubborn strokes kept sullen 
sound. 

Oh, then uprose the love that slept! 
Oh, then her heart beat loud and 
strong! 

Oh, then the proud love pent up long 
Broke forth in wail upon the air! 

And leaning there she sobbed and 
wept, 

With dark face mantled in her hair. 

She sudden lifts her leaning brow. 
He nears the shore, her love! and now 
The foam flies spouting from the face 
That laughing lifts from out the race. 

The race is won, the work is done! 
She sees the kingly crest of snow; 

She knows her tall, brown Idaho. 

She cries aloud, she laughing cries, 
And tears are streaming from her eyes: 
“O splendid, kingly Idaho! 

I kiss thy lifted crest of snow. 

“My tall and tawny king, come back! 
Come swift, O sweet! why falter so? 
Come! Come! What thing has 
crossed your track? 





372 


®fjc g>toux Cfjief’g ©augfjtcc 


I kneel to all the gods I know. . . 

Great Spirit, what is this I dread? 

Why, there is blood! the wave is red! 

That wrinkled chief, outstripped in 
race, 

Dives down, and, hiding from my 
face, 

Strikes underneath. 

“ . . . He rises now! 

Now plucks my hero’s berry bough, 

And lifts aloft his red fox head, 

And signals he has won for me. . . . 

Hist, softly! Let him come and see. 

“Oh, come! my white-crowned 
hero, come! 

Oh, come! and I will be your bride, 

Despite yon chieftain’s craft and 
might. 

Come back to me! my lips are 
dumb, 

My hands are helpless with despair; 

The hair you kissed, my long, strong 
hair, 

Is reaching to the ruddy tide, 

That you may clutch it when you 
come. 

“How slow he buffets back the 
wave! 

O God, he sinks! O Heaven! save 

My brave, brave king! He rises! 
see! 

Hold fast, my hero! Strike for me. 

Strike straight this way! Strike firm 
and strong! 

Hold fast your strength. It is not 
long— 

O God, he sinks! He sinks! Is 
gone! 


“And did I dream and do I wake? 

Or did I wake and now but dream? 

And what is this crawls from the 
stream? 

Oh, here is some mad, mad mistake! 

What, you! the red fox at my feet? 

You first, and failing from the race? 

What! You have brought me berries 
red? 

What! You have brought your bride 
a wreath? 

You sly red fox with wrinkled face— 

That blade has blood between your 
teeth! 

“Lie low! lie low! while I lean o’er 

And clutch your red blade to the 
shore. . . . 

Ha! ha! Take that! take that and 
that! 

Ha! ha! So, through your coward 
throat 

The full day shines! ... Two 
fox-tails float 

Far down, and I but mock thereat. 

“But what is this? What snowy 
crest 

Climbs out the willows of the west, 

All dripping from his streaming hair'* 

’Tis he! My hero brave and fair! 

His face is lifting to my face, 

And who shall now dispute the race? 

“The gray hawks pass, O love! and 
doves 

O’er yonder lodge shall coo their 
loves. 

My hands shall heal your wounded 

breast, 

And in yon tall lodge two shall rest.” 



SH S>fjafi(a fEale of Hobe 

A SHASTA TALE OF LOVE 


373 


u And God saw the light that it was 
good." 

I heard a tale long, long ago, 
Where I had gone apart to pray 
By Shasta’s pyramid of snow, 

That touches me unto this day. 

I know the fashion is to say 
An Arab tale, an Orient lay; 

But when the grocer rings my gold 
On counter, flung from greasy hold, 
He cares not from Acadian vale 
It comes, or savage mountain 
chine;— 

But this the Shastan tale: 

Once in the olden, golden days, 
When men and beasts companioned, 
when 

All went in peace about their ways 
Nor God had hid His face from men 
Because man slew his brother beast 
To make his most unholy feast, 

A gray coyote, monkish cowled, 
Upraised his face and wailed and 
howled 

The while he made his patient round; 
For lo! the red men all lay dead, 
Stark, frozen on the ground. 

The very dogs had fled the storm, 
A mother with her long, meshed hair 
Bound tight about her baby’s form, 
Lay frozen, all her body bare. 

Her last shred held her babe in place; 
Her last breath warmed her baby’s 
face. 

Then, as the good monk brushed the 
snow 


Aside from mother loving so, 

He heard God from the mount above 
Speak through the clouds and loving 
say: 

“Yea, all is dead but Love.” 

“Now take up Love and cherish 
her, 

And seek the white man with all 
speed, 

And keep Love warm within thy fur; 
For oh, he needeth love indeed. 

Take all and give him freely, all 
Of love you find, or great or small; 
For he is very poor in this, 

So poor he scarce knows what love is.” 
The gray monk raised Love in his 
paws 

And sped, a ghostly streak of gray, 
To where the white man was. 

But man uprose, enraged to see 
A gaunt wolf track his new-hewn 
town. 

He called his dogs, and angrily 
He brought his flashing rifle down. 
Then God said: “On his hearth¬ 
stone lay 

The seed of Love, and come away; 
The seed of Love, ’tis needed so, 

And pray that it may grow and 
grow.” 

And so the gray monk crept at night 
And laid Love down, as God had 
said, 

A faint and feeble light. 

So faint, indeed, the cold hearth¬ 
stone 



374 


JLobe in tfjc ^terras 


It seemed would chill starved Love 
to death; 

And so the monk gave all his own 

And crouched and fanned it with his 
breath 

Until a red cock crowed for day. 

Then God said: “Rise up, come 
away. 

The beast obeyed, but yet looked 
back 

All morn along his lonely track; 

For he had left his all in all, 

His own Love, for that famished 
Love 

Seemed so exceeding small. 

And God said: “Look not back 
again." 

But ever, where a campfire burned, 

And he beheld strong, burly men 

At meat, he sat him down and 
turned 

His face to wail and wail and mourn 


The Love laid on that cold hearth¬ 
stone. 

Then God was angered, and God 
said: 

“Be thou a beggar then; thy head 
Hath been a fool, but thy swift feet, 
Because they bore sweet Love, shall 
be 

The fleetest of all fleet." 

And ever still about the camp, 

By chine or plain, in heat or hail, 

A homeless, hungry, hounded tramp, 
The gaunt coyote keeps his wail. 

And ever as he wails he turns 
His head, looks back and yearns and 
yearns 

For lost Love, laid that wintry day 
To warm a hearthstone far away. 
Poor loveless, homeless beast, I keep 
Your lost Love warm for you, and, 
too, 

A canon cool and deep. 


LOVE IN THE SIERRAS 


“No, not so lonely now—I love 
A forest maiden; she is mine 
And on Sierra’s slopes of pine, 

The vines below, the snows above, 

A solitary lodge is set 
Within a fringe of water’d firs; 

And there my wigwam fires burn, 

Fed by a round brown patient hand, 
That small brown faithful hand of 
hers 

That never rests till my return. 

The yellow smoke is rising yet; 
Tiptoe, and see it where you stand 
Lift like a column from the land. 


“There are no sea-gems in her hair, 
No jewels fret her dimpled hands, 
And half her bronzen limbs are bare. 
Her round brown arms have golden 
bands, 

Broad, rich, and by her cunning 
hands 

Cut from the yellow virgin ore, 

And she does not desire more. 

I wear the beaded wampum belt 
That she has wove—the sable pelt 
That she has fringed red threads 
around; 

And in the morn, when men are not, 





©lb <Hib at Castle &ocfes 


375 


I wake the valley with the shot 
That brings the brown deer to the 
ground. 

And she beside the lodge at noon 
Sings with the wind, while baby 
swings 

In sea-shell cradle by the bough— 
Sings low, so like the clover sings 
With swarm of bees; I hear her now, 

I see her sad face through the 
moon. . . . 

Such songs!—would earth had more 
of such! • 

She has not much to say, and she 
Lifts never voice to question me 
In aught I do . . . and that is 
much. 

I love her for her patient trust, 

And my love's forty-fold return— 

OLD GIB AT 

His eyes are dim, he gropes his way, 
His step is doubtful, slow, 

And now men pass him by today: 
But forty years ago— 

Why forty years ago I say 
Old Gib was good to know. 

For, forty years ago today, 

Where cars glide to and fro, 

The Modoc held the world at bay, 
And blood was on the snow. 

Ay, forty years ago I say 
Old Gib was good to know. 

Full forty years ago today 
This valley lay in flame; 

Up yonder pass and far away, 

Red ruin swept the same: 


A value I have not to learn 
As you ... at least, as many 
must . . . 

. . . “She is not over tall or fair; 
Her breasts are curtained by her 
hair, 

And sometimes, through the silken 
fringe, 

I see her bosom’s wealth, like wine 
Burst through in luscious ruddy 
tinge— 

And all its wealth and worth are mine. 
I know not that one drop of blood 
Of prince or chief is in her veins: 

I simply say that she is good, 

And loves me with pure womanhood. 
. . . When that is said, why, what 
remains?” 

ASTLE ROCKS 

Two women, with their babes at play, 
Were butchered in black shame. 

'Twas then with gun and flashing 
eye 

Old Gib loomed like a pine; 

“Now will you fight, or will you fly? 
I’ll take a fight in mine. 

Come let us fight; come let us die! ” 
There came just twenty-nine. 

Just twenty-nine who dared to die, 
And, too, a motley crew 
Of half-tamed red men; would they 

fly, 

Or would they fight him too? 

No time to question or reply, 

That was a time to do. 






376 


<&lb <§it> at Castle Rocks 


Up, up, straight up where thunders 
grow 

And growl in Castle Rocks, 

Straight up till Shasta gleamed in 
snow, 

And shot red battle shocks; 

Till clouds lay shepherded below, 

A thousand ghostly flocks. 

Yet up and up Old Gibson led, 

No looking backward then; 

His bare feet bled; the rocks were red 
From torn, bare-footed men. 

Yet up, up, up, till well nigh dead— 
The Modoc in his den! 

Then cried the red chief from his 
height, 

“Now, white man, what would you? 
Behold my hundreds for the fight, 
But yours so faint and few; 

We are as rain, as hail at night 
But you, you are as dew. 

“White man, go back; I beg go 
back, 

I will not fight so few; 

Yet if I hear one rifle crack, 

Be that the doom of you! 

Back! down, I say, back down your 
track, 

Back, down! What else to do ? 

“ What else to do? Avenge or die! 
Brave men have died before; 

And you shall fight, or you shall fly. 


You find no women more, 

No babes to butcher now; for I 
Shall storm your Castle’s door!” 

Then bang! whiz bang! whiz bang 
and ping! 

Six thousand feet below, 

Sweet Sacramento ceased to sing, 

But wept and wept, for oh! 

These arrows sting as adders sting, 
And they kept stinging so. 

Then one man cried: “ Brave men 
have died, 

And we can die as they; 

But ah! my babe, my one year’s 
bride! 

And they so far away. 

Brave Captain, lead us back—aside, 
Must all here die today?” 

His face, his hands, his body bled: 
Yea, no man there that day— 

No white man there but turned to 
red, 

In that fierce fatal fray; 

But Gib with set teeth only said: 
“No; we came here to stay!” 

They stayed and stayed, and 
Modocs stayed, 

But when the night came on, 

No white man there was now afraid, 
The last Modoc had gone; 

His ghost in Castle Rocks was laid 
Till everlasting dawn. 



Comattrije 

COMANCHE 


377 


A blazing home, a blood-soaked 
hearth; 

Fair woman’s hair with blood upon! 
That Ishmaelite of all the earth 
Has like a cyclone, come and gone— 

. His feet are as the blighting dearth; 
His hands are daggers drawn. 

“To horse! to horse!’’ the rangers 
shout, 

And red revenge is on his track! 

The black-haired Bedouin en route 
Looks like a long, bent line of black. 
He does not halt nor turn about; 

He scorns to once look back. 

But on! right on that line of black, 
Across the snow-white, sand-sown 
pass; 

The bearded rangers on their track 
Bear thirsty sabers bright as glass. 

Yet not one red man there looks back; 
His nerves are braided brass. 

At last, at last, their mountain came 
To clasp its children in their flight! 
Up, up from out the sands of flame 
They clambered, bleeding to their 
height; 

This savage summit, now so tame, 
Their lone star, that dread night! 

“Huzzah! Dismount!” the cap¬ 
tain cried. 

“Huzzah! the rovers cease to roam! 
The river keeps yon farther side, 

A roaring cataract of foam. 

They die, they die for those who died 
Last night by hearth and home!” 


His men stood still beneath the 
steep; 

The high, still moon stood like a nun. 

The horses stood as willows weep; 

Their weary heads drooped every one. 

But no man there had thought of 
sleep; 

Each waited for the sun. 

Vast nun-white moon! Her silver 
rill 

Of snow-white peace she ceaseless 
poured; 

The rock-built battlement grew still, 

The deep-down river roared and 
roared. 

But each man there with iron will 

Leaned silent on his sword. 

Hark! See what light starts from 
the steep! 

And hear, ah, hear that piercing 
sound. 

It is their lorn death-song they keep 

In solemn and majestic round. 

The red fox of these deserts deep 

At last is run to ground. 

Oh, it was weird,—that wild, pent 
horde! 

Their death-lights, their death-wails 
each one. 

The river in sad chorus roared 

And boomed like some great funeral 
gun. 

The while each ranger nursed his 
sword 

And waited for the sun. 




jMontaia 

MONTARA 


37 » 

/ 


Montara, Naples of my West! 

Montara, Italy to me! 

Montara, newest, truest, best 

Of all brave cities by this 
sea! 


I’d rather one wee bungalow 
Wherel mid-March may sit me down 
And watch thy warm waves come and 
go, 

Than two whole blocks of Boston 
town. 


THE LARGER COLLEGE 


ON LAYING THE COLLEGE CORNER-STONE 


Where San Diego seas are warm, 
Where winter winds from warm 
Cathay 

Sing sibilant, where blossoms swarm 
With Hybla’s bees, we come to lay 
This tribute of the truest, best, 

The warmest daughter of the West. 

Here Progress plants her corner¬ 
stone 

Against this warm, still, Cortez vrave. 
In ashes of the Aztec’s throne, 

In tummals of the Toltec’s grave, 

We plant this stone, and from the sod 
Pick painted fragments of his god. 

Here Progress lifts her torch to 
teach 

God’s pathway through the pass of 
care; 

Her altar-stone Balboa’s Beach, 

Her incense warm, sweet, perfumed 
air; 

Such incense! where white strophes 
reach 

And lap and lave Balboa’s Beach! 


We plant this stone as some small 
seed 

Is sown at springtime, warm with 
earth; 

We sow this seed as some good deed 

Is sown, to grow until its worth 

Shall grow, through rugged steeps of 
time, 

To touch the utmost star sublime. 

We lift this lighthouse by the sea, 

The westmost sea, the westmost 
shore, 

To guide man’s ship of destiny 

When Scylla and Charybdis roar; 

To teach him strength, to proudly 
teach 

God’s grandeur, where His white 
palms reach: 

To teach not Sybil books alone; 

Man’s books are but a climbing 
stair, 

Lain step by step, like stairs of stone; 

The stairway here, the temple 
there— \ 




®o tfje pioneers 


379 


Man’s lampad honor, and his trust, 
The God who called him from the 
dust. 

Man’s books are but man’s 
alphabet, 

Beyond and on his lessons lie— 

The lessons of the violet, 

The large gold letters of the sky; 

The love of beauty, blossomed soil, 
The large content, the tranquil toil: 

The toil that nature ever taught, 
The patient toil, the constant stir, 
The toil of seas where shores are 
wrought, 

The toil of Christ, the carpenter; 


The toil of God incessantly 
By palm-set land or frozen sea. 

Behold this sea, that sapphire sky! 
Where nature does so much for man, 
Shall man not set his standard high, 
And hold some higher, holier plan? 
Some loftier plan than ever planned 
By outworn book of outworn land? 

Where God has done so much for 
man! 

Shall man for God do aught at all? 
The soul that feeds on books alone— 
I count that soul exceeding small 
That lives alone by book and creed,— 
A soul that has not learned to read. 


TO THE PIONEERS 

READ AT SAN FRANCISCO, 1894 


How swift this sand, gold-laden, 
runs! 

How slow these feet, once swift and 
firm! 

Ye came as romping, rosy sons, 
Come jocund up at College term; 

Ye came so jolly, stormy, strong, 

Ye drown’d the roll-call with your 
song. 

But now ye lean a list’ning ear 
And—“ Adsum! Adsum! I am here!” 

My brave world-builders of a world 
That tops the keystone, star of 
States, 

All hail! Your battle flags are furled 
In fruitful peace. The golden gates 
Are won. The jasper walls be yours. 


Your sun sinks down yon soundless 
shores. 

Night falls. But lo! your lifted eyes 
Greet gold outcroppings in the skies. 

Companioned with Sierra’s peaks 
Our storm-born eagle shrieks his scorn 
Of doubt or death, and upward seeks 
Through unseen worlds the coming 
morn. 

Or storm, or calm, or near, or far, 
His eye fixed on the morning star, 
He knows, as God knows, there is 
dawn; 

And so keeps on, and on, and on! 

So ye, brave men of bravest days, 
Fought on and on with battered shield, 






380 


“ 49 ” 


Up bastion, rampart, till the rays 

Of full morn met ye on the field. 

Ye knew not doubt; ye only knew 

To do and dare, and dare and do! 

Ye knew that time, that God’s first¬ 
born, 

Would turn the darkest night to 
morn. 

Ye gave your glorious years of 
youth 

And lived as heroes live—and die. 

Ye loved the truth, ye lived the truth; 

Ye knew that cowards only lie. 

Then heed not now one serpent’s hiss, 


We have worked our claims, 

We have spent our gold, 

Our barks are astrand on the bars; 
We are battered and old, 

Yet at night we behold, 
Outcroppings of gold in the stars. 

Chorus 

Tho' battered and old, 

Our hearts are bold, 

Yet oft do we repine; 

For the days of old, 

For the days of gold, 

For the days of forty-nine. 


Or trait’rous, trading, Judas kiss. 

Let slander wallow in his slime; 

Still leave the truth to God and time. 

Worn victors, few and true, such 
clouds 

As track God’s trailing garment’s hem 
Where Shasta keeps shall be your 
shrouds, 

And ye shall pass the stars in them. 
Your tombs shall be while time en¬ 
dures, 

Such hearts as only truth secures; 
Your everlasting monuments 
Sierra’s snow-topt battle tents. 

Where the rabbits play, 

Where the quail all day 
Pipe on the chaparral hill; 

A few more days, 

And the last of us lays 
His pick aside and all is still. 

Chorus 

We are wreck and stray, 

We are cast away, 

Poor battered old hulks and spars; 
But we hope and pray, 

On the judgment day, 

We shall strike it up in the stars. 


SAN DIEGO 


“O for a beaker of the warm South; 
The true, the blushful hypocrinel" 

What shall be said of the sun-born 
Pueblo? 


This town sudden bom in the path of 
the sun? 

This town of St. James, of the calm 
San Diego, 

As suddenly born as if shot from a gun ? 





pioneers to tfje (great Cmeralb Eanb 381 


Why, speak of her warmly; why, 
write her name down 

As softer than sunlight, as warmer 
than wine! 

Why, speak of her bravely; this ulti¬ 
mate town 

With feet in the foam of the vast 
Argentine: 


The vast argent seas of the Aztec, 
of Cortez! 

The boundless white border of battle- 
torn lands— 

The fall of Napoleon, the rise of red 
Juarez— 

The footfalls of nations are heard on 
her sands. 


PIONEERS TO THE GREAT EMERALD LAND 

READ AT PORTLAND, 1 896 


Emerald, emerald, emerald Land; 

Land of the sun mists, land of the 
sea, 

Stately and stainless and storied and 
grand 

As cloud-mantled Hood in white 
majesty— 

Mother of States, we are worn, we are 
gray— 

Mother of men, we are going away. 

Mother of States, tall mother of 
men, 

Of cities, of churches, of homes, of 
sweet rest, 

We are going away, we must journey 
again, 

As of old we journeyed to the vast, far 
West. 

We tent by the river, our feet once 
more, 

Please God, are set for the ultimate 
shore. 

Mother, white mother, white Ore¬ 
gon 

In emerald kilt, with star-set crown 


Of sapphire, say is it night? Is it 
dawn? 

Say what of the night? Is it well up 
and down? 

We are going away. . . . From 
yon high watch tower, 

Young men, strong men, say, what 
of the hour? 

Young men, strong men, there is 
work to be done; 

Faith to be cherished, battles to fight, 

Victories won were never well won 

Save fearlessly won for God and the 
right. 

These cities, these homes, sweet peace 
and her spell 

Be ashes, but ashes, with the infidel. 

Have Faith, such Faith as your 
fathers knew, 

All else must follow if you have but 
Faith. 

Be true to their Faith, and you must 
be true. 

“Lo! I will be with you,” the Master 
saith. 





382 


Alaska 


Good by, dawn breaks; it is coming 
full day 

And one by one we strike tent and 
away. 

Good by. Slow folding our snow- 
white tents, 


Our dim eyes lift to the farther shore, 
And never these riddled, gray regi¬ 
ments 

Shall answer full roll-call any more. 
Yet never a doubt, nay, never a 
fear 

Of old, or now, knew the Pioneer. 


ALASKA 


Ice built, ice bound and ice 
bounded, 

Such cold seas of silence! such room! 

Such snow-light, such sea light con¬ 
founded 

With thunders that smite like a doom! 

Such grandeur! such glory! such 
gloom! 

Hear that boom! hear that deep dis¬ 
tant boom 

Of an avalanche hurled 

Down this unfinished world! 


Ice seas! and ice summits! ice 
spaces 

In splendor of white, as God’s throne! 

Ice worlds to the pole! and ice places 

Untracked, and unnamed, and un¬ 
known ! 

Hear that boom! Hear the grinding, 
the groan 

Of the ice-gods in pain! Hear the 
moan 

Of yon ice mountain hurled 

Down this unfinished world. 


THE AMERICAN OCEAN 


“Ten thousand miles of mobile sea— 
This sea of all seas blent as one 
Wide, unbound book of mystery, 

Of awe, of sibyl prophecy, 

Ere yet a ghost or misty ken 
Of God’s far, first beginning when 
Vast darkness lay upon the deep.” 

• •••••• 

“He looked to heaven, God; but she 
Saw only his face and the sea.” 


“Aye, day is done, the dying 
sun 

Sinks wounded unto death tonight; 

A great, hurt swan, he sinks to 
rest, 

His wings all crimson, blood his 
breast! 

With wide, low wings, reached left 
and right, 

He sings, and night and swan are 
one— 

One huge, black swan of Helicon.” 






3 foriligijt at 

TWILIGHT AT 

The brave young city by the Bal¬ 
boa seas 

Lies compassed about by the hosts of 
night— 

Lies humming, low, like a hive of 
bees; 

And the day lies dead. And its 
spirit’s flight 

Is far to the west; while the golden 
bars 

That bound it are broken to a dust of 
stars. 


tfjc Jngijts 383 

THE HIGHTS 

Come under my oaks, oh, drowsy 
dusk! 

The wolf and the dog; deer incense 
hour 

When Mother Earth hath a smell of 
musk, 

And things of the spirit assert their 
power— 

When candles are set to burn in the 
west— 

Set head and foot to the day at 
rest. 


ARBOR DAY 


Against our golden orient dawns 

We lift s living light today, 

That shall outshine the splendid 
bronze 

That lords and lights that lesser Bay. 

Sweet Paradise was sown with 
trees; 

Thy very name, lorn Nazareth, 

Means woods, means sense of birds 
and bees, 

And song of leaves with lisping 
breath. 

God gave us Mother Earth, full 
blest 

CALIFORNIA’S 

The golden poppy is God’s gold, 

The gold that lifts, nor weighs us 
down, 

The gold that knows no miser's hold, 
The gold that banks not in the town, 


With robes of green in healthful fold; 
We tore the green robes from her 
breast! 

We sold our mother’s robes for gold! 

We sold her garments fair, and she 
Lies shamed and naked at our feet! 
In penitence we plant a tree; 

We plant the cross and count it meet. 

Lo, here, where Balboa’s waters 
toss, 

Here in this glorious Spanish bay, 
We plant the cross, the Christian 
cross, 

The Crusade Cross of Arbor Day. 

CUP OF GOLD 

But singing, laughing, freely spills 
Its hoard far up the happy hills; 

Far up, far down, at every turn.— 
What beggar has not gold to 
burn! 





384 


ti ]t Pattern g>eag 

BY THE BALBOA SEAS 


The golden fleece is at our feet, 
Our hills are girt in sheen of gold; 

Our golden flower-fields are sweet 
With honey hives. A thousand-fold 
More fair our fruits on laden stem 
Than Jordan tow’rd Jerusalem. 

MAGNOLIA 

The broad magnolia’s blooms are 
white; 

Her blooms are large, as if the moon 
Had lost her way some lazy night, 
And lodged here till the afternoon. 

CALIFORNIA’ 

The stars are large as lilies! Morn 
Seems some illumined story— 

The story of our Savior born, 

Told from old turrets hoary— 

The full moon smiling tips a horn 
And hies to bed in glory! 

My sunclad city walks in light 
And lasting summer weather; 

Red roses bloom on bosoms white 
And rosy cheeks together. 

If you should smite one cheek, still 
smite 

For she will turn the other. 

The thronged warm street tides to 
and fro 

And Love, roseclad, discloses. 

The only snowstorm we shall know 
Is this white storm of roses— 

It seems like Maytime, mating so, 
And—-Nature counting noses. 


Behold this mighty sea of seas! 
The ages pass in silence by. 

Gold apples of Hesperides 
Hang at our God-land gates for aye. 
Our golden shores have golden keys 
Where sound and sing the Balboa seas. 

BLOSSOMS 

Oh, vast white blossoms breathing 
love! 

White bosom of my lady dead, 

In your white heaven overhead 
I look, and learn to look above. 

CHRISTMAS 

Soft sea winds sleep on yonder 
tide; 

You hear some boatmen rowing. 
Their sisters’ hands trail o’er the side; 
They toy with warm waves flowing; 
Their laps are laden deep and wide 
From rose-trees green and growing. 

Such roses white! such roses red! 
Such roses richly yellow! 

The air is like a perfume fed 
From autumn fruits full mellow— 
But see! a brother bends his head, 
An oar forgets its fellow! 

Give me to live in land like this, 
Nor let me wander further; 

Some sister in some boat of bliss 
And I her only brother— 

Sweet paradise on earth it is; 

I would not seek another. 





3§5 


®jie jdlett of Jfottp=i5tne 

THE MEN OF FORTY-NINE 


Those brave old bricks of forty- 
nine! 

What lives they lived! what deaths 
they died! 

A thousand canons, darkling wide 
Below Sierra’s slopes of pine, 
Receive them now. And they who 
died 

Along the far, dim, desert route— 
Their ghosts are many. Let them 
keep 

Their vast possessions. The Piute, 
The tawny warrior, will dispute 
No boundary with these. And I 
Who saw them live, who felt them 
die, 

Say, let their unplow’d ashes sleep, 
Untouch’d by man, on plain or steep. 

The bearded, sunbrown’d men who 
bore 

The burden of that frightful year, 
Who toil’d, but did not gather store, 
They shall not be forgotten. Drear 
And white, the plains of Shoshonee 
Shall point us to that farther shore, 
And long, white, shining lines of 
bones 

Make needless sign or white mile¬ 
stones. 

The wild man’s yell, the groaning 
wheel; 

The train that moved like drifting 
barge; 

The dust that rose up like a cloud— 
Like smoke of distant battle! Loud 
The great whips rang like shot, and 
steel 


Of antique fashion, crude and large, 
Flash’d back as in some battle charge. 

They sought, yea, they did find 
their rest. 

Along that long and lonesome way, 
These brave men buffet’d the West 
With lifted faces. Full were they 
Of great endeavor. Brave and true 
As stern Crusader clad in steel, 
They died a-field as it was fit. 

Made strong with hope, they dared to 
do 

Achievement that a host today 
Would stagger at, stand back and 
reel, 

Defeated at the thought of it. 

What brave endeavor to endure! 
What patient hope, when hope was 
past! 

What still surrender at the last, 

A thousand leagues from hope! how 
pure 

They lived, how proud they died! 
How generous with life! The wide 
And gloried age of chivalry 
Hath not one page like this to 
me. 


Let all these golden days go by, 

In sunny summer weather. I 
But think upon my buried brave, 
And breathe beneath another sky. 
Let Beauty glide in gilded car, 

And find my sundown seas afar, 
Forgetful that ’tis but one grave 
From eastmost to the westmost wave. 


25 



386 


Custer 


Yea, I remember! The still tears 
That o’er uncoffin’d faces fell! 

The final, silent, sad farewell! 

God! these are with me all the years! 
They shall be with me ever. I 
Shall not forget. I hold a trust. 
They are part of my existence. When 
Swift down the shining iron track 


You sweep, and fields of corn flash 
back, 

And herds of lowing steers move by, 
And men laugh loud, in mute mis¬ 
trust, 

I turn to other days, to men 
Who made a pathway with their 
dust. 


CUSTER 


Oh, it were better dying there, 

On glory’s front, with trumpet’s blare, 
And battle’s shout blent wild about— 
The sense of sacrifice, the roar 
Of war! The soul might well leap 
out— 


The brave, white soul leap boldly 
out 

The door of wounds, and up the stair 
Of heaven to God’s open door, 
While yet the knees were bent in 
prayer. 


THE HEROES OF AMERICA 


O perfect heroes of the earth, 

That conquer’d forests, harvest set! 
O sires, mothers of my West! 

How shall we count your proud be¬ 
quest? 

But yesterday ye gave us birth; 

We eat your hard-earned bread to¬ 
day, 

Nor toil nor spin nor make regret, 
But praise our petty selves and say 
How great we are. We all forget 
The still endurance of the rude 
Unpolish’d sons of solitude. 

What strong, uncommon men were 
these, 

These settlers hewing to the seas! 
Great horny-handed men and tan; 


Men blown from many a barren 
land 

Beyond the sea; men red of hand, 
And men in love, and men in debt, 
Like David’s men in battle set; 

And men whose very hearts had 
died, 

Who only sought these woods to 
hide 

Their wretchedness, held in the van; 
Yet every man among them stood 
Alone, along that sounding wood, 
And every man somehow a man. 
They push’d the mailed wood aside, 
They toss’d the forest like a toy, 
That grand forgotten race of men— 
The boldest band that yet has been 
Together since the siege of Troy. 


[ 





“®be Jfourtfj ” in Oregon 

“THE FOURTH”IN OREGON 


387 


Hail, Independence of old ways! 
Old worlds! The West declares the 
West, 

Her storied ways, her gloried days, 
Because the West deserveth best. 
This new, true land of noblest deeds 
Has rights, has sacred rights and 
needs. 

Sing, ye who may, this natal day; 
Of dauntless thought, of men of 
might, 

In lesser lands and far away. 

But truth is truth and right is right. 
And, oh, to sing like sounding flood, 
These boundless boundaries writ in 
blood! 

Three thousand miles of battle 
deeds, 

Of burning Moscows, Cossacks, 
snows; 

Then years and years of British 
greed, 

Of grasping greed; of lurking foes. 

I say no story ever writ 
Or said, or sung, surpasses it! 

And who has honored us, and who 
Has bravely dared stand up and say: 
“Give ye to Caesar Caesar’s due?” 
Unpaid, unpensioned, mute and gray, 
Some few survivors of the brave, 

Still hold enough land for a grave. 

How much they dared, how much 
they won— 

Why, o’er your banner of bright 
stars, 


Their star should be the blazing sun 
Above the battle star of Mars. 

Here, here beside brave Whitman’s 
dust, 

Let us be bravely, frankly just. 

The mountains from the first were 
so. 

The mountains from the first were 
free. 

They ever laid the tyrant low, 

And kept the boon of liberty. 

The levels of the earth alone 
Endured the tyrant, bore the throne. 

The levels of the earth alone 
Bore Sodoms, Babylons of crime, 

And all sad cities overthrown 
Along the surging surf of time. 

The coward, slave, creeps in the fen: 
God’s mountains only cradle men. 

Aye, wise and great was Washing¬ 
ton, 

And brave the men of Bunker Hill; 
Most brave and worthy every one, 

In work and faith and fearless will 
And brave endeavor for the right, 
Until yon stars burst through their 
night. 

Aye, wise and good was Washing¬ 
ton. 

Yet when he laid his sword aside, 

The bravest deed yet done was done. 
And when in stately strength and 
pride 

He took the plow and turned the mold 
He wrote God’s autograph in gold. 



tn ©rcgon 


“®fje Jfourtf)” 


388 

He wrought the fabled fleece of 
gold 

In priceless victories of peace, 

With plowshare set in mother mold; 
Then gathering the golden fleece 
About his manly, martial breast, 

This farmer laid him down to rest. 

O! this was godlike! And yet, who 
Of all men gathered here today 
Has not drawn sword as swift as true, 
Then laid its reddened edge away, 
And took the plow, and turned the 
mold 

To sow yon sunny steeps with gold. 

Aye, this true valor! Sing who will 
Of battle charge, of banners borne 
Triumphant up the blazing hill 
On battle’s front, of banners tom, 

Of horse and rider torn and rent, 

Red regiment on regiment. 

Yet this were boy’s play to that 
man 

Who, far out yonder lone frontier, 
With wife and babe fought in the van, 
Fought on, fought on, year after year. 
No brave, bright flag to cheer the 
brave, 

No farewell gun above his grave. 

I say such silent pioneers 
Who here set plowshare to the sun, 
And silent gave their sunless years, 
Were kings of heroes every one. 

No Brandywine, no Waterloo 
E’er knew one hero half so true! 

A nation’s honor for our dead, 
God’s pity for the stifled pain; 


And tears as ever woman shed, 

Sweet woman’s tears for maimed or 
slain. 

But man’s tears for the mute, un¬ 
known, 

Who fights alone, who falls alone. 

The very bravest of the brave, 

The hero of all lands to me? 

Far up yon yellow lifting wave 
His brave ship cleaves the golden 
sea. 

And gold or gain, or never gain, 

No argosy sails there in vain. 

And who the coward? Hessian 
he, 

Who turns his back upon the 
field, 

Who wears the slavish livery 
Of town or city, sells his shield 
Of honor, as his ilk of old 
Sold body, soul, for British gold. 

My heroes, comrades of the field, 
Content ye here; here God to you, 
Whatever fate or change may yield, 
Has been most generous and true. 
Yon everlasting snow-peaks stand 
His sentinels about this land. 

Yon bastions of God’s house are 
white 

As heaven’s porch with heaven’s 
peace. 

Behold His portals bathed in light! 
Behold at hand the golden fleece! 
Behold the fatness of the land 
On every hill, on every hand! 



&tt Knstuer 


389 


Yon bannered snow-peaks point 
and plead 

God’s upward path, God’s upward 
plan 


Of peace, God’s everlasting creed 
Of love and brotherhood of man. 
Thou mantled magistrates in white, 
Give us His light! Give us His light! 


AN ANSWER 


Well! who shall lay hand on my 
harp but me, 

Or shall chide my song from the 
sounding trees? 

The passionate sun and the resolute 
sea, 

These were my masters, and only these. 

These were my masters, and only 
these, 

And these from the first I obey'd, and 
they 

Shall command me now, and I shall 
obey 

As a dutiful child that is proud to 
please. 

There never were measures as true 
as the sun, 

The sea hath a song that is passingly 
sweet, 

And yet they repeat, and repeat, and 
repeat, 

The same old runes though the new 
years run. 

By unnamed rivers of the Oregon 
north, 

That roll dark-heaved into turbulent 
hills, 

I have made my home. . . . The 
wild heart thrills 

With memories fierce, and a world 
storms forth. 


On eminent peaks that are dark 
with pine, 

And mantled in shadows and voiced 
in storms, 

I have made my camps: majestic 
gray forms 

Of the thunder-clouds, they were 
companions of mine; 

And face set to face, like to lords 
austere, 

Have we talk’d, red-tongued, of the 
mysteries 

Of the circling sun, of the oracled 
seas, 

While ye who judged me had mantled 
in fear. 

Some fragment of thought in the 
unfinish’d words; 

A cry of fierce freedom, and I claim 
no more. 

What more would you have from the 
tender of herds 

And of horse on an ultimate Oregon 
shore? 

From men unto God go forth, as 
alone, 

Where the dark pines talk in their 
tones of the sea 

To the unseen God in a harmony 

Of the under seas, and know the un¬ 
known. 













FROM 

THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL, 

1893 


391 









FEED MY SHEEP 


Come, let us ponder; it is fit— 

Born of the poor, born to the poor— 
The poor of purse, the poor of wit 
Were first to find God’s opening 
door, 

Were first to climb the ladder, round 
by round, 

That fell from Heaven’s door unto the 
ground. 


God’s poor came first, the very first! 
God’s poor were first to see, to 
hear, 

To feel the light of heaven burst 
Full on their faces far or near, 

His poor were first to follow, first to 
fall! 

What if at last His poor stand first of 
all? 


UNDER THE SYRIAN STARS 


Dear Bethlehem, the proud repose 
Of conscious worthiness is thine. 

Rest on. The Arab comes and 
goes, 

But farthest Saxon holds thy shrine 

More sacred in his stouter Christian 
hold 

Than England’s heaped-up iron house 
of gold. 

Thy stony hill is heaven’s stair; 

Thine every stone some storied gem. 

Oh, thou art fair and very fair, 

Thou holy, holy Bethlehem! 


Thy very dust more dear than dust of 
gold 

Against my glorious sunset waters 
rolled. 

And here did glean the lowly Ruth; 
Here strode her grandson, fierce and 
fair, 

Strode forth in all his kingly youth 
And tore the ravening she-bear. 

Here Rachel sleeps. Here David, 
thirsting, cried 

For just one drop from yonder trick¬ 
ling tide. 


THE GROWING OF A SOUL 


Hear ye this parable. A man 

Did plant a garden. Vine and tree 
Alike, in course of time, began 
To put forth fair and pleasantly. 


The rains of heaven, the persuading 
sun 

Came down alike on each and every 
one. 


393 





394 


$oto Peauttful are tfje jfeet 


Yet some trees wilful grew, and some 
Strong vines grew gaily in the 
sun, 

With gaudy leaves, that ever come 
To naught. And yet, each flaunt¬ 
ing one 

Did flourish on triumphantly and 
glow 

Like sunset clouds in all their moving 
show. 

But lo! the harvest found them not. 
The soul had perished from them. 
Mould 


And muck and leaf lay there to rot, 
And furnish nourishment untold 

To patient tree and lowly creeping 
vine 

That grew as grew the Husbandman’s 
design. 

Hear then this lesson; hear and heed: 
I say that chaff shall perish; say 

Man’s soul is like unto a seed 
To grow unto the Judgment Day. 

It grows and grows if he will have it 
grow; 

It perishes if he must have it so. 


HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET 


O star-built bridge, broad milky way! 

O star-lit, stately, splendid span! 

If but one star should cease to stay 
And prop its shoulders to God’s 
plan— 

The man who lives for self, I say, 
He lives for neither God nor man. 

I count the columned waves at war 
With Titan elements; and they, 

In martial splendor, storm the bar 


And shake the world, these bits of 
spray. 

Each gives to each, and like the star 
Gets back its gift in tenfold pay. 

To get and give and give amain 
The rivers run and oceans roll. 

O generous and high-born rain 
When raining as a splendid whole! 
That man who lives for self, again, 

I say, has neither sense nor soul. 


THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 


I think the birds in that far dawn 
Were still. The bustling town below 
Lay listening. Its strength was 
drawn 

To him, as tides that inward flow. 

All Galilee lay still. Far fields of 
corn 

Lay still to hear that silent, sacred 
mom. 


Be comforted; and blessed be 
The meek, the merciful, the pure 
Of heart; for they shall see, shall 
hear 

God’s mercy. So shall peace endure 
With God’s peacemakers. They 
are His, and they 
Shall be His children in the Judg¬ 
ment Day. 





395 


3n tfje §&ucat of ®fjp jfatc 

IN THE SWEAT OP THY FACE 


What sound was that? A pheasant’s 
whir? 

What stroke was that? Lean low 
thine ear. 

Is that the stroke of the carpenter, 
That far, faint echo that we hear? 

Is that the sound that sometime 
Bedouins tell 

Of hammer stroke as from His hand 
it fell? 

Is it the stroke of the carpenter, 
Through eighteen hundred years 
and more 

Still sounding down the hallowed stir 
Of patient toil; as when He wore 

The leathern dress,—the echo of a 
sound 

That thrills for aye the toiling, sensate 
ground? 


Hear Mary weaving! Listen! Hear 
The thud of loom at weaving 
time 

In Nazareth. I weave this dear 
Tradition with my lowly rhyme. 

Believing everywhere that she may 
hear 

The sound of toil, sweet Mary bends 
an ear. 

Yea, this the toil that Jesus knew; 
Yet we complain if we must bear. 

Are we more dear? Are we more 
true? 

Give us, O God, and do not spare! 

Give us to bear as Christ and Mary 
bore 

With toil by leaf-girt Nazareth of 
yore! 


THE CHRIST IN EGYPT 


O land of temples, land of tombs! 

O tawny land, O lion dead! 

O silent land of silent looms; 

Of kingly garments torn to shred! 
O land of storied wonder still, as 
when 

Fair Joseph stood the chiefest of all 
men! 

• •••••♦ 

The Christ in Egypt! Egypt and 
Her mystic star-built Pyramids! 
Her shoreless, tiger seas of sand! 

Her Sphynx with fixed and weary 
lids! 


Her red and rolling Nile of yellow 
sheaves 

Where Moses cradled 'mid his lily 
leaves. 


Her lorn, dread temples of the dead 
Had waited, as mute milestones 
wait 

By some untraversed way unread, 
Until the King, or soon or late, 

Should come that tomb-built w y ay and 
silent pass 

To read their signs above the sand- 
sown grass. 




396 Stoatttng tfje &e£fumttton at ilamafe 


Behold! Amid this majesty 
Of ruin, at the dust-heaped tomb 

Of vanity came Christ to see 
Earth’s emptiness, the dark death 
room 

Of haughtiness, of kingly pomp, of 
greed, 

Of gods of gold or stone, or storied 
creed. 


And this His first abiding-place! 

And these dread scenes His child¬ 
hood’s toys! 

What wonder at that thoughtful 
face? 

That boy face never yet a boy’s? 

What wonder that the elders mar¬ 
velled when 

A boy spake in the Temple unto men? 


AWAITING THE RESURRECTION AT KARNAK 


Lorn land of silence, land of awe! 
Lorn, lawless land of Moslem 
will,— 

The great Law-giver and the law 
Have gone away together. Still 

The sun shines on; still Nilus darkly 
red 

Steals on between his awful walls of 
dead. 

And sapphire skies still bend as when 
Proud Karnak’s countless columns 
propped 

The corners of the world; when men 
Kept watch where massive Cheops 
topped 

Their utmost reach of thought, and 
sagely drew 

Their star-lit lines along the trackless 
blue. 

But Phthah lies prostrate evermore; 
And Thoth and Neith all are gone; 


And huge Osiris hears no more, 
Thebes’ melodies; nor Mut at On; 

Yet one lone obelisk still lords the 
spot 

Where Plato sat to learn. But On is 
not. 

Nor yet has Time encompassed all; 
You trace your finger o’er a name 

That mocks at age within the wall 
Of fearful Kamak. Sword nor 
flame 

Shall touch what men have jour¬ 
neyed far to touch 

And felt eternity in daring such! 

‘‘Juda Melchi Shishak! ” Read 
The Holy Book; read how that he 

With chariot and champing steed 
Invaded far and fair Judea. 

Yea, read the chronicle of red hands 
laid 

On “shields of gold which Solomon 
had made.” 




®be Wee of Wl 

THE VOICE OF TOIL 


397 


Come, lean an ear, an earnest ear, 
To Nature’s breast, some stilly eve, 

And you shall hear, shall surely hear 
The Carpenter, and shall believe; 

Shall surely hear, shall hear for aye, 
who will, 

The patient strokes of Christ resound¬ 
ing still. 

The thud of loom, the hum of wheel, 
That steady stroke of Carpenter! 

And was this all? Did God reveal 
No gleam of light to Him, to her? 

No gleam of hopeful light, sweet 
toiling friend, 

Save that which burneth dimly at 
the end. 

That beggar at the rich man’s gate! 
That rich man moaning down in 
hell! 

And all life’s pity, all life’s hate! 

Yea, toil lay on Him like a spell. 


Stop still and think of Christ, of 
Mary there, 

Her lifted face but one perpetual 
prayer. 

I can but hope at such sore time, 
When all her soul went out so fond, 

She touched the very stars sublime 
And took some sense of worlds 
beyond; 

And took some strength to ever toil 
and wait 

The glories bursting through God’s 
star-built gate. 

And He so silent, patient, sad, 

As seeing all man’s sorrows through! 

How could the Christ be wholly glad 
To know life’s pathos asHeknew,— 

To know, and know that all the 
beauteous years 

Man still will waste in battle, blood 
and tears? 


THE FOUNDATION STONES 


Be thou not angered. Go thy way 
From God’s high altar to thy foe; 
Nor think to kneel and truly pray 
Till thou art reconciled and know 
Thou hast forgiven him; as thou must 
be 

Forgiven of the sins that burthen 
thee. 

And if thine eye tempt thee to shame 
Turn thou aside; pluck it away! 


And with thy right hand deal the 
same, 

Nor tempt thy soul to sin this 
day. 

Yea, thou art very weak. Thou 
couldst not make 

One hair turn white or black, for 
thine own sake. 

And whosoever smite thy cheek, 
Turn thou that he may smite again. 




39§ 


®f>e Jfirst Hato of <@ofc 


The truly brave are truly meek, 

And bravely bear both shame and 
pain. 

They slay, if truly brave men ever 
slay, 

Their foes, with sweet forgiveness, 
day by day. 

And if a man would take thy coat, 
Give him thy cloak and count it 
meet. 

Bread cast on waters can but float 
In sweet forgiveness to thy feet; 

So thou, by silent act like this, shalt 
preach 

Such sermons as not flame nor sword 
can teach. 

Lay not up treasures for yourselves 
On earth, and stint and starve the 
soul 

By heaping granaries and shelves 
And high store-houses; for the 
whole 


THE FIRST 

Look back, beyond the Syrian sand, 
Beyond the awful flames that burst 
O’er Sinai! That first command 
Outside the gates, God’s very first, 


Of wealth is this: to grow and grow 
and grow 

In faith; to know and ever seek to 
know. 

Therefore give not too much of 
thought 

For thy tomorrows. Birds that 
call 

Sweet melodies sow not, reap not, 
And yet the Father feedeth all. 

Therefore toil trusting, loving; watch 
and pray, 

And pray in secret; pray not long, 
but say: 

Give us our daily bread this day, 
Forgive our sins as we forgive, 

Lead us not in temptation’s way, 
Deliver us that we may live; 

For thine the kingdom is, has ever 
been, 

And thine the power, the glory, and 
— Amen! 


\W OF GOD 

Was this: “Thou shalt in sweat and 
constant toil 

Eat bread till thou returnest to the 
soil.” 


LO! ON THE PLAINS OF BETHEL 


Lo! on the plains of Bethel lay 
An outworn lad, unhoused, alone, 
His couch the tawny mother clay, 
His pillow that storm-haunted stone; 


The hollow winds howled down the 
star-lit plain, 

All white and wild with highborn 
wintry rain. 







f?oto g>ijall jWan grnrelp g>abe J|tss g>oul? 399 


Yet here God’s ladder was let down, 
Yea, only here for aye and aye! 

Not in the high-walled, splendid town, 
Not to the throned king feasting 
high, 

But far beneath the storied Syrian 
stars 

God’s ladder fell from out the golden 
bars. 


And ever thus. Take heart! to some 
The hand of fortune pours her horn 

Of plenty, smiling where they come; 
And some to wit and some to 
wealth are born, 

And some are bom to pomp and 
splendid ease; 

But lo! God’s shining ladder leans to 
none of these. 


HOW SHALL MAN SURELY SAVE HIS SOUL? 


“How shall man surely save his 
soul?” 

'Twas sunset by the Jordan. Gates 

Of light were closing, and the whole 
Vast heaven hung darkened as the 
fates. 

‘‘How shall man surely save his 
soul”; he said 

As fell the kingly day, discrowned and 
dead. 

The Christ said: “Hear this parable. 
Two men set forth and journeyed 
fast 

To reach a place ere darkness fell 
And closed the gates ere they had 
passed; 

Two worthy men, each free alike of 
sin, 

But one did seek most sure to enter 

in. 

‘ ‘ And so when in their path did lay 
A cripple with a broken staff, 

The one did pass straight on his way, 
While one did stoop and give the 
half 


His strength, and all his time did 
nobly share 

Till they at sunset saw their city fair. 

“And he who would make sure ran 
fast 

To reach the golden sunset gate, 

Where captains and proud chariots 
passed, 

But lo, he came one moment 
late! 

The gate was closed, and all night 
long he cried; 

He cried and cried, but never watch 
replied. 

‘‘Meanwhile, the man who cared to 
save 

Another as he would be saved 

Came slowly on, gave bread and 
gave 

Cool waters, and he stooped and 
laved 

The wounds. At last, bent double 
with his weight, 

He passed, unchid, the porter’s pri¬ 
vate gate. 







Unber tfj t ©libe ees. 


400 

“Hear then this lesson, hear and 
learn: 

He who would save his soul, I say, 
Must lose his soul; must dare to 
turn 


UNDER THE 

Those shining leaves that lisped and 
shook 

All darkness from them, sensate 
leaves 

In Nature’s never-ending book; 

Leaves full of truth as garnered 
sheaves 

That hold till seed-time fruitful seed, 

To grow as grows some small good 
deed. 


And lift the fallen by the way; 
Must make his soul worth saving by 
some deed 

That grows, and grows, as grows the 
fruitful seed.” 


OLIVE TREES 

How strangely and how vastly still! 
The harvest moon hung low and 
large, 

And drew across the dreamful hill 
Like some huge star-bound, 
freighted barge; 

Some strange, new, neighbor-world 
it surely seemed, 

The while he gazed and dreamed, yet 
scarcely dreamed. 


FROM OUT THE GOLDEN DOORS OF DAWN 


From out the golden doors of dawn 
The wise men came, of wondrous 
thought, 

Who knew the stars. From far upon 
The shoreless East they kneeling 
brought 

Their costly gifts of inwrought gems 
and gold, 

While cloudlike incense from their 
presence rolled. 

Their sweets of flower fields, their 
sweet 

Distilments of most sacred leaves 

They laid, low-bending, at His feet, 
As reapers bend above their 
sheaves— 


As strong-armed reapers bending 
clamorous 

To gather golden full sheaves kneeling 
thus. 

And kneeling so, they spake of when 
God walked His garden’s sacred 
sod, 

Nor yet had hid his face from men, 
Nor yet had man forgotten God. 

They spake. But Mary kept her 
thought apart 

And, silent, “pondered all things in 
her heart.” 

They spake in whispers long, they laid 
Their shaggy heads together, drew 





®f)e gmtt Hap jffloUett in ttje £§>ea 


401 


Some stained scrolls breathless forth, 
then made 

Such speech as only wise men 
knew,— 


Their high, red camels on the huge 
hill set 

Outstanding, like some night-hewn 
silhouette. 


THE SUN LAY MOLTEN IN THE SEA 

The sun lay molten in the sea In one broad, bright intensity 

Of sand, and all the sea was rolled Of gold and gold and gold and gold. 


HE WALKED THE WORLD WITH BENDED HEAD 


He walked the world with bended 
head. 

‘ 4 There is no thing," he moaning said, 

“That must not some day join the 
dead." 

He sat where rolled a river deep; 

A woman sat her down to weep; 

A child lay in her lap asleep. 

The water touched the mother’s 
hand. 

His heart was touched. He passed 
from land, 

But left it laughing in the sand. 

That one kind word, that one good 
deed, 


Was as if you should plant a seed 
In sand along death’s sable brede. 

And looking from the farther shore 
He saw, where he had sat before, 

A light that grew, grew more and 
more. 

He saw a growing, glowing throng 
Of happy people white and strong 
With faith, and jubilant with song. 

It grew and grew, this little seed 
Of good sown in that day of need, 
Until it touched the stars indeed! 

And then the old man smiling said, 
With youthful heart and lifted head, 
“No good deed ever joins the dead." 


THE DAY SAT BY WITH BANNER FURLED 


The Day sat by with banner furled; 
His battered shield hung on the 
wall; 

One great star walked the upper 
world, 


All purple-robed, in Stately Hall; 
Some unseen reapers gathered golden 
sheaves, 

The skies were as the tree of life in 
yellow leaves. 


26 






402 ®fje 3 ®ap ibat Pp tmtfj fanner Jfurleb 


God's poor of Hebron rested. Then 
Straightway unto their presence 
drew 

A captain with his band of men 

And smote His poor, and well-nigh 
slew, 

Saying, “Hence, ye poor! Behold, 
the king this night 

Comes forth with torch and dance and 
loud delight." 

His poor, how much they cared to 
see! 

How begged they, prone, to see, to 
hear! 

But spake the captain angrily, 

And drove them forth with sword 
and spear, 

And shut the gate; and when the 
king passed through, 

These lonely poor—they knew not 
what to do. 

Lo, then a soft-voiced stranger said: 
“ Come ye with me a little space. 

I know where torches gold and red 
Gleam down a peaceful, ample 
place; 

Where song and perfume fill the rest¬ 
ful air, 

And men speak scarce at all. The 
king is there." 

They passed; they sat a grass-set 
hill— 

What king hath carpets like to this? 

What king hath music like the trill 
Of crickets 'mid these silences— 


These perfumed silences, that rest 
upon 

The soul like sunlight on a hill at 
dawn? 

Behold what blessings in the air! 

What benedictions in the dew! 

These olives lift their arms in prayer; 

They turn their leaves, God reads 
them through; 

Yon lilies where the falling water 
sings 

Are fairer-robed than choristers of 
kings. 

Lift now your heads! yon golden 
bars 

That build the porch of heaven, 
seas 

Of silver-sailing golden stars— 

Yea, these are yours, and all of 
these! 

For yonder king hath never yet been 
told 

Of silver seas that sail these ships of 
gold. 

They turned, they raised their heads 
on high; 

They saw, the first time saw and 
knew, 

The awful glories of the sky, 

The benedictions of the dew; 

And from that day His poor were 
richer far 

Than all such kings as keep where 
follies are. 



Cf>c Coil of <©ob 


403 


THE TOIL OF GOD 


Behold the silvered mists that rise 
From all-night toiling in the corn. 

The mists have duties up the skies, 
The skies have duties with the 
morn; 

While all the world is full of earnest 
care 

To make the fair world still more 
wondrous fair, 


More lordly fair; the stately mom 
Moves down the walk of golden 
wheat; 

Her guards of honor gild the com 
In golden pathway for her feet; 

The purpled hills she crowns in 
crowns of gold, 

And God walks with us as He walked 
of old. 


THE BLESSED BEES 


I think the bees, the blessed bees, 
Are better, wiser far than we. 

The very wild birds in the trees 
Are wiser far, it seems to me; 

For love and light and sun and air 

Are theirs, and not a bit of care. 

What bird makes claim to all God’s 
trees? 

What bee makes claim to all God’s 
flowers? 

Behold their perfect harmonies, 
Their common board, the common 
hours! 

Say, why should man be less than 
these, 

The happy birds, the hoarding bees? 


MAN’S 

Man’s books are but man’s alphabet; 
Beyond and on his lessons lie— 


The birds? What bird hath envied 
bird 

That he sings on as God hath 
willed? 

Yet man—what song of man is heard 
But he is stoned, or cursed, or 
killed? 

Thank God, sweet singers of the air, 

No sparrow falls without His care. 

O brown bee in your honey house? 
Could we like you but find it best 

To common build, on sweets carouse, 
To common toil, to common rest, 

To common share our sweets with 
men— 

We surely would be better then. 


BOOKS 

The lessons of the violet, 

The large, gold letters of the sky. 





404 


®fje ®rulp J?rabe 

THE TRULY BRAVE 


And what for the man who went forth 
for the right, 

Was hit in the battle and shorn of a 
limb? 

Why, honor for him who falls in the 
fight, 

Falls wounded of limb and crippled 
for life; 

Give honor, give glory, give pensions 
for him, 

Give bread and give shelter for babes 
and for wife. 

But what for the hero who battles 
alone 

In battles of thought where God set 
him down; 

Who fought all alone and who fell 
overthrown 

In his reason at last from the hardness 
and hate? 

Why, jibe him and jeer him and point 
as you frown 

To that lowly, lone hero who dared 
challenge fate. 


WHAT IF WE ALL 

What if we all lay dead below; 

Lay as the grass lies, cold and dead 

In God’s own holy shroud of snow, 
With snow-white stones at foot and 
head, 

With all earth dead and shrouded 
white 

As clouds that cross the moon at 
night? 


God pity, God pardon, and God help 
us all! 

“That young man of promise,” 
wherever he be, 

“That young man of promise,” 
wherever he fall,— 

For fall, he must fall, ’tis a thousand 
to one,—• 

Let us plant him a rose; let us plant 
a great tree 

To hide his poor grave from the world 
and the sun. 

I tell you ’twere better to cherish 
that soul— 

That soldier that battles with thought 
for a sword, 

That climbs the steep ramparts where 
wrong has control, 

And falls beaten back by the rude, 
trampling horde. 

Ay, better to cherish his words and 
his worth 

Than all the Napoleons that people 
the earth. 


LAY DEAD BELOW 

What if that infidel some night 
Could then rise up and see how 
dead, 

How wholly dead and out of sight 
All things with snows sown foot and 
head 

And lost winds wailing up and down 

The emptied fields and emptied 
town? 




Put Up ®fjp g>toorU 


405 


I think that grand old infidel 
Would rub his hands with fiendish 
glee, 

And say, “I knew it, knew it well! 

I knew that death was destiny; 

I ate, I drank, I mocked at God, 
Then as the grass was, and the 
sod." 


Ah me, the grasses and the sod, 
They are my preachers. Hear 
them preach 

When they forget the shroud, and God 
Lifts up these blades of grass to 
teach 

The resurrection! Who shall say 
What infidel can speak as they? 


PUT UP THY SWORD 


And who the bravest of the brave; 
The bravest hero ever bom? 

‘Twas one who dared a felon’s grave, 
Who dared to bear the scorn of 
scorn. 

Nay, more than this; when sword was 
drawn 

And vengeance waited for His 
word, 

He looked with pitying eyes upon 
The scene, and said, "Put up thy 
sword." 

Oh God! could man be found to¬ 
day 

As brave to do, as brave to say? 


"Put up thy sword into its sheath.” 

Put up thy sword, put up thy 
sword! 

By Cedron’s brook thus spake be¬ 
neath 

The olive-trees our valiant Lord, 
Spake calm and king-like. Sword 
and stave 

And torch, and stormy men of death 
Made clamor. Yet He spake not, 
save 

With loving word and patient 
breath, 

The peaceful olive-boughs beneath, 

‘ ‘Put up thy sword within its sheath.” 


WHY, KNOW YOU NOT SOUL SPEAKS TO SOUL 


Why, know you not soul speaks to 
soul? 

I say the use of words shall pass— 


Words are but fragments of the 
glass, 

But silence is the perfect whole. 


THE VOICE OF THE DOVE 


Come, listen O Love to the voice of 
the dove, 

Come, hearken and hear him say, 


"There are many To-morrows, my 
Love, my Love, 

There is only one Today." 






406 


W fje "^Joicc of tfje ©obe 


And all day long you can hear him 
say, 

“ This day in purple is rolled 
And the baby stars of the milky 
way, 

They are cradled in cradles of gold.” 


Now what is thy secret, serene gray 
dove, 

Of singing so sweetly always? 
“There are many Tomorrows, my 
Love, my Love, 

There is only one Today.” 


f 



ENGLISH THEMES 


407 


* 


/ 


ENGLAND 


Thou, mother of brave men, of 
nations! Thou, 

The white-brow’d Queen of bold 
white-bearded Sea! 

Thou wert of old ever the same asnow, 
So strong, so weak, so tame, so fierce, 
so bound, so free, 

A contradiction and a mystery; 


Serene, yet passionate, in ways thine 
own. 

Thy brave ships wind and weave 
earth’s destiny. 

The zones of earth, aye, thou hast set 
and sown 

All seas in bed of blossom’d sail, as 
some great garden blown. 


ST. PAUL’S 


I see above a crowded world a cross 
Of gold. It grows like some great 
cedar tree 

Upon a peak in shroud of cloud and 
moss, 

Made bare and bronzed in far anti¬ 
quity. 

Stupendous pile! The grim Yosemite 
Has rent apart his granite wall, and 
thrown 

Its rugged front before us. . . . 
Here I see 

The strides of giant men in cryptic 
stone, 

And turn, and slow descend where 
sleep the great alone. 

The mighty captains have come 
home to rest; 

The brave returned to sleep amid the 

brave. 


The sentinel that stood with steely 
breast 

Before the fiery hosts of France, and 
gave 

The battle-cry that roll’d, receding 
wave 

On wave, the foeman flying back and 
far, 

Is here. How still! Yet louder now 
the grave 

Than ever-crashing Belgian battle- 
car 

Or blue and battle-shaken seas of 
Trafalgar. 

The verger stalks in stiff import¬ 
ance o’er 

The hollow, deep and strange re¬ 
sponding stones; 

He stands with lifted staff unchid 
before 


409 




4 io 


SHestoniiufter 8b&ep 


The forms that once had crush’d or 
fashion’d thrones, 

And coldly points you out the coffin’d 
bones: 

He stands composed where armies 
could not stand 


A little time before. . . . The hand 
disowns 

The idle sword, and now instead the 
grand 

And golden cross makes sign and 
takes austere command. 


WESTMINSTER ABBEY 


The Abbey broods beside the turbid 
Thames; 

Her mother heart is filled with mem¬ 
ories; 

Her every niche is stored with storied 
names; 

They move before me like a mist of 
seas. 

I am confused, and made abash’d by 
these 

Most kingly souls, grand, silent, and 
severe. 

I am not equal, I should sore displease 

The living . . . dead. I dare not 
enter; drear 

And stain’d in storms of grander days 
all things appear. ! 


I go! but shall I not return 
again 

When art has taught me gentler, 
kindlier skill, 

And time has given force and strength 
of strain? 

I go! O ye that dignify and fill 

The chronicles of earth! I would 
instil 

Into my soul somehow the atmo¬ 
sphere 

Of sanctity that here usurps the 
will; 

But go; I seek the tomb of one—a 
peer 

Of peers—whose dust a fool refused 
to cherish here. 


OH, FOR ENGLAND’S OLD TIME THUNDER! 


Oh, for England’s old sea thunder! 
Oh, for England’s bold sea men, 
When we banged her over, under 
And she banged us back again! 
Better old-time strife and stresses, 
Cloud topt towers, walls, distrust; 


Better wars than lazinesses, 

Better loot than wine and lust! 

Give us seas? Why, we have oceans! 
Give us manhood, sea men, men! 
Give us deeds, loves, hates, emotions! 
Else give back these seas again. 


AT LORD BYRON’S TOMB 

Moved animate in human form di- 


O Master, here I bow before a shrine; 
Before the lordliest dust that ever yet 


vine. 






St Hort) Upton’s tComfa 


Lo! dust indeed to dust. The mold is set 

Above thee and the ancient walls are 
wet, 

And drip all day in dank and silent 
gloom, 

As if the cold gray stones could not 
forget 

Thy great estate shrunk to this som¬ 
ber room, 

But lean to weep perpetual tears 
above thy tomb. 

Before me lie the oak-crown’d 
Annesley hills, 

Before me lifts the ancient Annesley 

Hall 

Above the mossy oaks. ... A 
picture fills 

With forms of other days. A maiden 

tall 

And fair; a fiery restless boy, with all 

The force of man! a steed that frets 
without; 

A long thin sword that rusts upon the 
wall. . . . 

The generations pass. ... Be¬ 
hold! about 

The ivied hall the fair-hair’d children 
sport and shout. 

A bay wreath, wound by Ina of the 
West, 

Hangs damp and stain’d upon the 
dark gray w r all, 

Above thy time-soil’d tomb and 
tatter’d crest; 

A bay wreath gather’d by the seas 
that call 

To orient Cathay, that break and fall 

On shell-lined shores before Tahiti’s 
breeze. 


41 1 

A slab, a crest, a wreath, and these are 
all 

Neglected, tatter’d, tom; yet only 
these 

The world bestows for song that 
rivail’d singing seas. 

A bay-wreath w r ound by one more 
truly brave 

Than Shastan; fair as thy eternal fame, 

She sat and wove above the sunset 
wave, 

And wound and sang thy measures 
and thy name. 

’Twas wound by one, yet sent w r ith 
one acclaim 

By many, fair and warm as flowing 
wine, 

And purely true, and tall as growing 
flame, 

That list and lean in moonlight’s 
mellow shine 

To tropic tales of love in other tongues 
than thine. 

I bring this idle reflex of thy task, 

And my few loves, to thy forgotten 
tomb; 

I leave them here; and here all pardon 
ask 

Of thee, and patience ask of singers 
whom 

Thy majesty hath silenced. I resume 

My staff, and now my face is to the 
West; 

My feet are worn; the sun is gone, a 
gloom 

Has mantled Hucknall, and the min¬ 
strel’s zest 

For fame is broken here, and here he 
pleads for rest. 



412 


JBeati in tlje Hong, Strong 

DEAD IN THE LONG, STRONG GRASS 


Dead! stark dead in the long, strong 
grass! 

But he died with his sword in his 
hand. 

Who says it ? who saw it ? God saw it! 

And I knew him! St. George! he 
would draw it, 

Though they swooped down in mass 

Till they darkened the land! 

Then the seventeen wounds in his 
breast! 

Ah! these witness best! 

THE PASSING 

My kingly kinsmen, kings of thought, 
I hear your gathered symphonies, 

Such nights as when the world is not, 
And great stars chorus through my 
trees. 

• © o • • • • 

We knew it, as God’s prophets knew, 
We knew it, as mute red men know, 

When Mars leapt searching heaven 
through 

With flaming torch, that he must 
go. 

Then Browning, he who knew the 
stars, 

Stood forth and faced insatiate Mars. 

Then up from Cambridge rose and 
turned 

SweetLowellfromhis Druid trees— 

Turned where the great star blazed 
and burned, 

As if his own soul might appease. 


Dead! stark dead in the long, strong 
grass! 

Dead! and alone in the great dark 
land! 

O mother! not Empress now, mother! 

A nobler name, too, than all 
other, 

The laurel leaf fades from thy 
hand! 

O mother that waiteth, a mass! 

Masses and chants must be said, 

And cypress, instead. 

OF TENNYSON 

Yet on and on through all the stars 

Still searched and searched insatiate 
Mars. 

Then stanch Walt Whitman saw and 
knew; 

Forgetful of his “ Leaves of Grass,” 

He heard his “ Drum Taps” and God 
drew 

His great soul through the shining 
pass, 

Made light, made bright by burnished 
staVs; 

Made scintillant from flaming Mars. 

Then soft-voiced Whittier was heard 
To cease; was heard to sing no more, 

As you have heard some sweetest bird 
The more because its song is o’er. 

Yet brighter up the street of stars 

Still blazed and burned and beckoned 
Mars. 




&iel, tlje i&el’el 


413 


And then the king came; king of 
thought, 

King David with his harp and 
crown. . . . 

How wisely well the gods had 
wrought 

That these had gone and sat them 
down 

To wait and welcome ’mid the 
stars 

All silent in the light of Mars. 


All silent . . . So, he lies in state. 
• • • 

Our redwoods drip and drip with 
rain. . . . 

Against our rock-locked Golden Gate 
We hear the great, sad, sobbing 
main. 

But silent all. . . . He passed the 
stars 

That year the whole world turned to 
Mars. 


RIEL, THE REBEL 


He died at dawn in the land of 
snows; 

A priest at the left, a priest at the 
right; 

The doomed man praying for his piti¬ 
less foes, 

And each priest holding a low dim 
light, 

To pray for the soul of the dying. 

But Windsor Castle was far away; 

And Windsor Castle was never so 
gay 

With her gorgeous banners flying! 


The hero was hung in the windy 
dawn— 

’Twas splendidly done, the telegraph 
said; 

A creak of the neck, then the shoul¬ 
ders drawn; 

A heave of the breast—and the man 
hung dead, 

And, oh! never such valiant dying! 

While Windsor Castle was far away 

With its fops and fools on that windy 
day, 

And its thousand banners flying! 


MOTHER EGYPT 


Dark-browed, she broods with weary 
lids 

Beside her Sphynx and Pyramids, 
With low and never-lifted head. 

If she be dead, respect the dead; 

If she be weeping, let her weep; 

If she be sleeping, let her sleep; 

For lo, this woman named the stars! 
She suckled at her tawny dugs 


Your Moses while you reeked in wars 

And prowled your woods, nude, 
painted thugs. 

Then back, brave England; back in 
peace 

To Christian isles of fat increase! 

Go back! Else bid your high priests 
mold 





4 H 


!3frica 


Their meek bronze Christs to cannon 
bold; 

Take down their cross from proud St. 
Paul’s 

And coin it into cannon-balls! 

You tent not far from Nazareth; 

Your camps trench where his child- 
feet strayed. 

If Christ had seen this work of death! 

If Christ had seen these ships invade! 

I think the patient Christ had said, 

“Go back, brave men! Take up your 
dead; 

Draw down your great ships to the 
seas; 

Repass the Gates of Hercules. 

Go back to wife with babe at breast, 

And leave lorn Egypt to her rest.” 

Or is Christ dead, as Egypt is? 

Ah, England, hear me yet again; 

There’s something grimly wrong in 
this— 

So like some gray, sad woman slain. 

What would you have your mother 
do? 


Hath she not done enough for you? 

Go back! And when you learn to 
read, 

Come read this obelisk. Her deed 

Like yonder awful forehead is 

Disdainful silence. Like to this 

What lessons have you writ in stone 

To passing nations that shall stand? 

Why, years as hers will leave you 
lone 

And level as yon yellow sand. 

Saint George? Your lions? Whence 
are they? 

From awful, silent Africa. 

This Egypt is the lion's lair; 

Beware, brave Albion, beware! 

I feel the very Nile should rise 

To drive you from this sacrifice. 

And if the seven plagues should 
come? 

The red seas swallow sword and 
steed? 

Lo! Christian lands stand mute and 
dumb 

To see thy more than Moslem deed. 


AFRICA 


Oh! she is very old. I lay, 

Made dumb with awe and wonder¬ 
ment, 

Beneath a palm before my tent, 
With idle and discouraged hands, 

Not many days ago, on sands 
Of awful, silent Africa. 

Long gazing on her ghostly shades, 
That lift their bare arms in the air, 

I lay. I mused where story fades 


From her dark brow and found her 
fair. 

A slave, and old, within her veins 
There runs that warm, forbidden 
blood 

That no man dares to dignify 
In elevated song. The chains 
That held her race but yesterday 
Hold still the hands of men. Forbid 





JSIofirton to tfje JSoer# 


4 i 5 


Is Ethiop. The turbid flood 
Of prejudice lies stagnant still, 

And all the world is tainted. Will 
And wit lie broken as a lance 
Against the brazen mailed face 
Of old opinion. None advance, 
Steel-clad and glad, to the attack, 
With trumpet and with song. Look 
back! 

Beneath yon pyramids lie hid 
The histories of her great race. . . . 
Old Nilus rolls right sullen by, 

With all his secrets. Who shall say: 
My father rear’d a pyramid; 

My brother clipp’d the dragon’s 
wings; 

My mother was Semiramis? 

Yea, harps strike idly out of place; 
Men sing of savage Saxon kings 
New-born and known but yesterday, 
And Norman blood presumes to 
say. . . 

Nay, ye who boast ancestral name 
And vaunt deeds dignified by time 
Must not despise her. Who hath 
worn 

Since time began a face that is 
So all-enduring, old like this— 

A face like Africa’s? Behold! 

The Sphinx is Africa. The bond 
Of silence is upon her. Old 
And white with tombs, and rent and 
shorn; 

BOSTON TO 

“ For the right that needs assistance, 
For the wrong that needs resistance, 
For the glory in the distance, 

For the good that we can do . ” 


With raiment wet with tears, and 
torn, 

And trampled on, yet all untamed; 
All naked now, yet not ashamed,— 
The mistress of the young world’s 
prime, 

Whose obelisks still laugh at time, 
And lift to heaven her fair name, 
Sleeps satisfied upon her fame. 

Beyond the Sphinx, and still be¬ 
yond, 

Beyond the tawny desert-tomb 
Of Time; beyond tradition, loom 
And lift, ghost-like, from out the 
gloom, 

Her thousand cities, battle-tom 
And gray with story and with 
Time. 

Her humblest ruins are sublime; 

Her thrones with mosses overborne 
Make velvets for the feet of Time. 

y' 

She points a hand and cries: “Go 
read 

The letter’d obelisks that lord 
Old Rome, and know my name and 
deed. 

My archives these, and plunder’d 
when 

I had grown weary of all men.” 

We turn to these; we cry: “ Abhorr’d 
Old Sphinx, behold, we cannot read!” 

THE BOERS 

“For Freedom's battles once begun, 
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, are ever won ."— 

Byron. 





416 


Boston to tfje ffloetn 


The Sword of Gideon, Sword of God, 
Be with ye, Boers. Brave men of 
peace, 

Ye hewed the path, ye brake the sod, 
Ye fed white flocks of fat increase, 
Where Saxon foot had never trod; 
Where Saxon foot unto this day 
Had measured not, had never known, 
Had ye not bravely led the way 
And made such happy homes your 
own. 

I think God’s house must be such 
home. 

The priestess Mother, choristers 
Who spin and weave, nor care to 
roam 

Beyond this white God’s house of 
hers, 

But spinning sing and spin again. 

I think such silent shepherd men 
Most like that few the prophet 
sings— 

Most like that few stout Abram drew 
Triumphant o’er the slaughtered 
kings. 


Defend God’s house! Let fall the 
crook. 

Draw forth the plowshare from the 
sod, 

And trust, as in the Holy Book, 

The Sword of Gideon and of God; 

God and the right! Enough to fight 

A million regiments of wrong. 

Defend! Nor count what comes of it. 

God’s battle bides not with the strong; 

And pride must fall. Lo! it is writ! 

Great England’s Gold! how stanch 
she fares, 

Fame’s wine-cup dressing her proud 
lips— 

Her checker-board of battle squares 

Rimmed round by steel-built battle¬ 
ships ! 

And yet mean whiles ten thousand 
miles 

She seeks ye out. Well, welcome 
her! 

Give her such welcome with such will 

As Boston gave in battle’s whir 

That red, dread day at Bunker Hill. 



MORE SONGS FROM THE HIGHTS 


27 


417 






THE 

Yes, I am dreamer. Yet while you 
dream, 

Then I am awake. When a child, 
back through 

The gates of the past I peer’d, and 1 
knew 

The land I had lived in. I saw a 
broad stream, 

Saw rainbows that compass’d a world 
in their reach; 

I saw my beloved go down on the 
beach; 


POET 

Saw her lean to this earth, saw her 
looking for me 

As shipmen looked for loved ship at 
sea. . . . 

While you seek gold in the earth. 
why, I 

See gold in the steeps of the starry 
sky; 

And which do you think has the 
fairer view 

Of God in heaven—the dreamer or 
you? 


AND OH, THE VOI 

And oh, the voices I have heard! 

Such visions where the morning 
grows— 

A brother’s soul in some sweet bird, 

A sister’s spirit in a rose. 

And oh, the beauty I have found! 

Such beauty, beauty everywhere; 

THE WORLD IS A 

Aye, the world is a better old 
world today! 

And a great good mother this earth 
of ours; 

Her white tomorrows are a white 
stairway 

To lead us up to the far star flowers— 


ES I HAVE HEARD 

The beauty creeping on the ground, 

The beauty singing through the air. 

The love in all, the good, the worth, 

The God in all, or dusk or dawn; 

Good will to man and peace on 
earth; 

The morning stars sing on and on. 

BETTER WORLD 

The spiral tomorrows that one by 
one 

W e climb and we climb in the face of 
the sun. 

Aye, the world is a braver old world 
today! 


419 





420 


®be jfortunate Itelesi 


For many a hero dares bear with 
wrong— 

Will laugh at wrong and will turn away; 
Will whistle it down the wind with a 
song— 


Dares slay the wrong with his 
splendid scorn! 

The bravest old hero that ever was 
born! 


THE FORTUNATE ISLES 


You sail and you seek for the Fortu¬ 
nate Isles, 

The old Greek Isles of the yellow 
bird’s song? 

Then steer straight on through the 
watery miles, 

Straight on, straight on, and you 
can’t go wrong. 

Nay not to the left, nay not to the 
right, 

But on, straight on, and the Isles are 
in sight, 

The old Greek Isles where yellow 
birds sing 

And life lies girt with a golden ring. 

These Fortunate Isles they are not so 
far, 

They lie within reach of the lowliest 
door; 

You can see them gleam by the 
twilight star; 

You can hear them sing by the 
moon’s white shore— 


Nay, never look back! Those leveled 
grave stones 

They were landing steps; they were 
steps unto thrones 

Of glory for souls that have gone 
before, 

And have set white feet on the fortu¬ 
nate shore. 

And what are the names of the 
Fortunate Isles? 

Why, Duty and Love and a large 
Content. 

Lo! these are the Isles of the watery 
miles, 

That God let down from the firma¬ 
ment. 

Aye! Duty, and Love, and a true 
man’s trust; 

Your forehead to God though your 
feet in the dust. 

Aye! Duty to man, and to God mean- 
whiles, 

And these, O friend, are the Fortu¬ 
nate Isles. 


TO SAVE A SOUL 


It seems to me a grandest, thing 
To save the soul from perishing 
By planting it where heaven’s rain 
May reach and make it grow again. 


It seems to me the man who leaves 
The soul to perish is as one 
Who gathers up the empty sheaves 
When all the golden grain is done. 







)e lUgfjt of Cfmst’g jface 

THE LIGHT OF CHRIST’S FACE 


421 


Behold how glorious! Behold 

The light of Christ’s face; and such 
light! 

The Moslem, Buddhist, as of old, 

Gropes hopeless on in hopeless night. 

But lo, where Christ comes, crowned 
with flame, 

Ten thousand triumphs in Christ’s 
name. 


Elijah’s chariot of fire 

Chained lightnings harnessed to his 
car! 

Jove’s thunders bridled by a wire— 

Call unto nations “here we are!” 

Lo! all the world one sea of 
light, 

Save where the Paynim walks in 
night. 


GOOD BUDDHA SAID “BE CLEAN, BE CLEAN” 


A free translation from the Chinese. 


“Beclean, be clean! ’’ Gautama cried, 
“Come, know the strength of being 
clean; 

Come, lie no more, ye who have lied, 
Come, lust no more, no more be 
mean; 

Be false no more, be foul no more, 

For I shall judge ye to the core.” 

They came, the silken Mandarin, 
The soldier with his blood-wet 
name, 

The poet with his lust of fame, 

The priest in sandals soaked with 
sin, 

The lawyer with his quibs and lies, 
The merchant with queer mer¬ 
chandise. 

And each so proud, proud and polite! 

So proud and clean! clean out of sight! 
Their very finger nails so clean 
They shone like sea shells, pink and 
green— 


A sort of ultra-submarine— 
Whatever ultra-sub may mean. 

And, too, there came a barefoot boy, 
Who left his long-horned purple 
cow 

Amid red poppies at the plow— 
Came whistling low with quiet joy, 
To stand aloof with modest mien 
And see the strength of being clean. 

Gautama waved his wand, and lo, 

On each such load of dirt was laid 
He bowed and sank down, sore 
afraid. 

Some sank so low, some trembled so, 
Some sank in such sad, piteous 
plight 

Their red-topt heads sank out of 
sight. 

The Mandarin with silk-tipt tail 
Showed scarce a shining finger nail. 




422 


®rue (Sreatneste 


The white-robed lawyer, lies and 
brief, 

Lay hid in dirt past all belief. 

The red-robed merchant could not 
rise 

One jot from out his load of lies. 

And all lay helpless, all save one, 

That simple-hearted farmer’s son, 

With soiled bare feet and sweat- 
moiled face, 

Who stood soft whistling in his 
place— 


Still wondering, yet safe, serene, 

In all the strength of being clean. 

But sudden tears came to his eyes, 

A flood of tender, piteous tears, 
For those poor slaves, so bound by 
lies, 

And writhing in their filth and 
fears. 

He leaned in pity o'er, when lo, 

His clean tears washed all clean as 
snow! 


TRUE GREATNESS 


How sad that all great things are 
sad.— 

That greatness knows not to be glad. 
The boundless, spouseless, fearful sea 
Pursues the moon incessantly; 

And Cassar childless lives and dies. 
The thunder-torn Sequoia tree 
In solemn isloation cries 
Sad chorus with the homeless wind 
Above the clouds, above his kind, 
Above the bastioned peak, above 
All sign or sound or sense of love. 
How mateless, desolate and drear 
His lorn, long seven thousand year! 
My comrades, lovers, dare to be 


More truly great than Caesar; he 

Who hewed three hundred towns 
apart, 

Yet never truly touched one heart. 

The tearful, lorn, complaining sea 

The very moon looks down upon, 

Then changes,—as a saber drawn; 

The great Sequoia lords as lone 

As God upon that fabled throne. 

No, no! True greatness, glory, fame. 

Is his who claims not place nor 
name, 

But loves, and lives content, com¬ 
plete, 

With baby flowers at his feet. 


ON THE FIRING LINE 


For glory? For good? For fortune, 
or for fame? 

Why, ho, for the front where the 
battle is on! 

Leave the rear to the dolt, the lazy, 
the lame; 


Go forward as ever the valiant 
have gone. 

Whether city or field, whether 
mountain or mine, 

Go forward, right on for the firing 
line! 






Ulotfjeni of Jllen 


423 


Whether newsboy or plo^boy or cow¬ 
boy or clerk, 

Fight forward; be ready, be steady, 
be first; 

Be fairest, be bravest; be best at your 
work; 

Exult and be glad; dare to hunger, 
to thirst, 

As David, as Alfred—let dogs skulk 
and whin'. —• 

There is room but for men on the 
firing line. 


Aye, the one place to fight and the one 
place to fall— 

As fall we must all, in God’s good 
time— 

It is where the manliest man is the 
wall, 

Where boys are as men in their 
pride and prime, 

Where glory gleams brightest, where 
brightest eyes shine— 

Far out on the roaring red firing 
line. 


MOTHERS OF MEN 


“Oh, give me good mothers! Yea, 
great, glad mothers, 

Proud mothers of dozens, indeed 
twice ten; 

Fair mothers of daughters and 
mothers of men, 

With old-time clusters of sisters and 
brothers, 


When grand Greeks lived like to 
gods, and when 

Brave mothers of men, strong 
breasted and broad, 

Did exult in fulfilling the purpose of 
God.” 


AFTER THE BATTLE 


Sing banners and cannon and roll 
of drum! 

The shouting of men and the marshal¬ 
ing! 

Lo! cannon to cannon and earth 
struck dumb! 

Oh, battle, in song, is a glorious 
thing! 

Oh, glorious day, riding down to 
the fight! 

Oh, glorious battle in story and song! 


Oh, godlike man to die for the 
right! 

Oh, manlike God to revenge the 
wrong! 

Yea, riding to battle, on battle 
day— 

Why, a soldier is something more 
than a king! 

But after the battle! The riding 
away! 

Ah, the riding away is another thing! 





424 


<£>ur Zeroes of fEobaj> 

OUR HEROES OP TODAY 


I 

With high face held to her ulti¬ 
mate star, 

With swift feet set to her mountains 
of gold, 

This new-built world, where the 
wonders are, 

She has built new ways from the ways 
of old. 

II 

Her builders of worlds are workers 
with hands; 

Her true world-builders are builders 
of these, 

The engines, the plows; writing poems 
in sands 

Of gold in our golden Hesperides. 

III 

I reckon these builders as gods 
among men: 

I count them creators, creators who 
knew 

The thrill of dominion, of conquest, 
as when 

God set His stars spinning their 

spaces of blue. 

IV 

A song for the groove, and a song 
for the wheel, 

And a roaring song for the rumbling 
car; 

But away with the pomp of the sol¬ 
dier’s steel, 

And away forever with the trade of 
war. 


V 

The hero of time is the hero of 
thought; 

The hero who lives is the hero of 
peace; 

And braver his battles than ever were 
fought, 

From Shiloh back to the battles of 
Greece. 

VI 

The hero of heroes is the engineer; 

The hero of height and of gnome- 
built deep, 

Whose only fear is the brave man’s 
fear 

That some one waiting at home might 
weep. 

VII 

The hero we love in this land today 

Is the hero who lightens some fellow- 
man’s load— 

Who makes of the mountain some 
pleasant highway; 

Who makes of the desert some blos¬ 
som-sown road. 

VIII 

Then hurrah! for the land of the 
golden downs, 

For the golden land of the silver horn; 

Her heroes have built her a thousand 
towns, 

But never destroyed her one blade of 
corn. 






& ©call Carpenter 

A DEAD CARPENTER 


425 


What shall be said of this soldier 
now dead? 

This builder, this brother, now resting 
forever? 

What shall be said of this soldier who 
bled 

Through thirty-three years of silent 
endeavor? 

Why, name him thy hero! Yea, 
write his name down 

As something far nobler, as braver 
by far 

Than purple-robed Caesar of battle- 
torn town 

When bringing home glittering 
trophies of war. 

Oh, dark somber pines of my star¬ 
lit Sierras, 

Be silent of song, for the master is 
mute! 


The Carpenter, master, is dead and 
lo! there is 

Silence of song upon nature’s draped 
lute! 

Brother! Oh, manly dead brother 
of mine! 

My brother by toil ’mid the toiling 
and lowly, 

My brother by sign of this hard hand, 
by sign 

Of toil, and hard toil, that the Christ 
has made holy: 

Yea, brother of all the brave mil¬ 
lions that toil; 

Brave brother in patience and silent 
endeavor, 

Rest on, as the harvester rich from 
his soil, 

Rest you, and rest you for ever and 
ever. 


QUESTION? 


In the days when my mother, the 
Earth, was young, 

And you all were not, nor the likeness 
of you, 

She walk’d in her maidenly prime 
among 

The moonlit stars in the boundless 
blue 

Then the great sun lifted his shin¬ 
ing shield, 

And he flash’d his sword as the sol¬ 
diers do, 


And he moved like a king full over 
the field, 

And he looked, and he loved her 
brave and true. 

And looking afar from the ultimate 
rim, 

As he lay at rest in a reach of 
light, 

He beheld her walking alone at 
night, 

When the buttercup stars in their 
beauty swim. 




426 


jUon’t H>top at tfjc Station ©cjfpatc 


So he rose up flush’d in his love, 
and he ran, 

And he reach’d his arms, and around 
her waist 

He wound them strong like a love- 
struck man, 

And he kissed and embraced her, 
brave and chaste. 

So he nursed his love like a babe at 
its birth, 


And he warm’d in his love as the long 
years ran, 

Then embraced her again, and sweet 
mother Earth 

Was a mother indeed, and her child 
was man. 

The sun is the sire, the mother is 
earth! 

What more do you know? what more 
do I need? 


DON’T STOP AT THE STATION DESPAIR 


We must trust the Conductor, most 
surely; 

Why, millions of millions before 
Have made this same journey 
securely 

And come to that ultimate shore. 
And we, we will reach it in season; 

And ah, what a welcome is there! 
Reflect then, how out of all reason 
To stop at the Station Despair. 

Aye, midnights and many a potion 
Of bitter black water have we 
As we journey from ocean to ocean— 
From sea unto ultimate sea— 


To that deep sea of seas, and all 
silence 

Of passion, concern and of care— 
That vast sea of Eden-set Islands— 
Don’t stop at the Station Despair! 

Go forward, whatever may follow, 

Go forward, friend-led, or alone; 
Ah me, to leap off in some hollow 
Or fen, in the night and unknown— 
Leap off like a thief; try to hide 
you 

From angels, all waiting you there! 
Go forward; whatever betide you, 
Don't stop at the Station Despair! 


FOR THOSE WHO FAIL 


“All honor to him who shall win 
the prize,” 

The world has cried for a thousand 
years; 

But to him who tries, and who fails 
and dies, x 

I give great honor and glory and 
tears: 


Give glory and honor and pitiful 
tears 

To all who fail in their deeds sub¬ 
lime; 

Their ghosts are many in the van of 
years, 

They were born with Time, in ad¬ 
vance of their Time. 





®t)e ifttber of 3&est 


427 


Oh, great is the hero who wins a 
name, 

But greater many and many a time 

Some pale-faced fellow who dies in 
shame, 

And lets God finish the thought sub¬ 
lime. 


And great is the man with a sword 
undrawn, 

And good is the man who refrains 
from wine; 

But the man who fails and yet still 
fights on, 

Lo, he is the twin-bom brother of mine. 


THE RIVER OF REST 


A beautiful stream is the River of 
Rest; 

The still, wide waters sweep clear and 
cold, 

A tall mast crosses a star in the west, 

A white sail gleams in the west 
world’s gold: 

It leans to the shore of the River of 
Rest— 

The lily-lined shore of the River of 
Rest. 

The boatman rises, he reaches a 
hand, 

He knows you well, he will steer you 
true, 

And far, so far, from all ills upon 
land, 


From hates, from fates that pursue 
and pursue; 

Far over the lily-lined River of 
Rest— 

Dear mystical, magical River of Rest. 

A storied, sweet stream is this 
River of Rest; 

The souls of all time keep its ulti¬ 
mate shore; 

And journey you east or journey you 
west, 

Unwilling, or willing, sure footed or 
sore, 

You surely will come to this River of 
Rest— 

This beautiful, beautiful River of 
Rest. 


DEATH IS DELIGHTFUL 


Death is delightful. Death is dawn, 
The waking from a weary night 
Of fevers unto truth and light. 

Fame is not much, love is not much, 
Yet what else is there worth the touch 
Of lifted hands with dagger drawn? 


So surely life is little worth: 
Therefore I say, look up; there¬ 
fore 

I say, one little star has more 
Bright gold than all the earth of 
earth. 





428 


®fje iwing of tfje Silence 

THE SONG OF THE SILENCE 


O, heavens, the eloquent song of the 
silence! 

Asleep lay the sun in the vines, on 
the sod, 

And asleep in the sun lay the green- 
girdled islands, 

As rock’d to their rest in the cradle 
of God, 

God’s poet is silence. His song is 
unspoken. 

And yet so profound, so loud, and 
so far, 


It fills you, it thrills you with 
measures unbroken, 

And as soft, and as fair, and as far 
as a star. 

The shallow seas moan. From the 
first they have mutter’d 
And mourn’d, as a child, and have 
wept at their will . . . 

The poems of God are too grand to 
be utter’d: 

The dreadful deep seas they are 
loudest when still. 


TOMORROW 


O thou Tomorrow! Mystery! 

O day that ever runs before! 

What hath thine hidden hand in store 
For mine, Tomorrow, and for me? 

O thou Tomorrow! what hast thou 
In store to make me bear the Now? 

O day in which we shall forget 
The tangled troubles of today! 

O day that laughs at duns, at debt! 


O day of promises to pay! 

O shelter from all present storm I 
O day in which we shall reform! 

O day of all days to reform! 
Convenient day of promises! 

Hold back the shadow of the storm. 
Let not thy mystery be less, 

O bless’d Tomorrow! chiefest friend, 
But lead us blindfold to the end. 


FINALE 


Ah me! I mind me long agone. 
Once on a savage snow-bound 
height 

We pigmies pierced a king. Upon 
His bare and upreared breast till 
night 

We rained red arrows and we 
rained 


Hot lead. Then up the steep and 

slow 

He passed; yet ever still disdained 
To strike, or even look below. 

We found him, high above the clouds 
next morn 

And dead, in all his silent, splendid 
scorn. 





Jfmale 


429 


So leave me, as the edge of night 
Comes on, a little time to pass, 

Or pray. For steep the stony height 
And tom by storm, and bare of grass 
Or blossom. And when I lie dead 
Oh, do not drag me down once 
more. 


For Jesus’ sake let my poor head 
Lie pillowed with these stones. My 
store 

Of wealth is these. I earned them. 
Let me keep 

Still on alone, on mine own star-lit 
steep. 









MISCELLANEOUS LINES 


431 




THE MISSOURI 


Where ranged thy black-maned, 
woolly bulls 

By millions, fat and unafraid; 

Where gold, unclaimed in cradlefuls, 

Slept ’mid the grass roots, gorge, 
and glade; 

Where peaks companioned with the 
stars, 

And propped the blue with shining 
white, 

With massive silver beams and bars, 

With copper bastions, height on 
height— 

There wast thou born, O lord of 
strength! 

O yellow lion, leap and length 

Of arm from out an Arctic chine 

To far, fair Mexic seas are thine! 

What colors? Copper, silver, gold 

With sudden sweep and fury blent, 

Enwound, unwound, inrolled, un¬ 
rolled, 

Mad molder of the continent! 

What whirlpools and what choking 
cries 

DOWN THE MISS 

Sowing the waves with a fiery 
rain, 

Leaving behind us a lane of light, 

Weaving a web in the woof of night, 

Cleaving a continent’s w T ealth in 
twain. 


From out the concave swirl and 
sweep 

As when some god cries out and dies 
Ten fathoms down thy tawny deep! 

Yet on, right on, no time for death, 

No time to gasp a second breath! 

You plow a pathway through the 
main 

To Morro’s castle, Cuba’s plain. 

Hoar sire of hot, sweet Cuban seas, 
Gray father of the continent, 

Fierce fashioner of destinies, 

Of states thou hast upreared or 
rent, 

Thou know’st no limit; seas turn 
back, 

Bent, broken from the shaggy 
shore; 

But thou, in thy resistless track, 

Art lord and master evermore. 

Missouri, surge and sing and sweep! 

Missouri, master of the deep, 

From snow-reared Rockies to the 
sea 

Sweep on, sweep on eternally! 

SSIPPI AT NIGHT 

Lighting the world with a way of 
flame, 

Writing, even as the lightnings write 

High over the awful arched forehead 
of night, 

Jehovah’s dread, unutterable name. 


28 


433 






434 


J8p tJje Hotoer iflisafetppi 

BY THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI 


The king of rivers has a dolorous 
shore, 

A dreamful dominion of cypress- 
trees, 

A gray bird rising forever more, 

And drifting away toward the Mexi¬ 
can seas— 

A lone bird seeking for some lost 
mate, 

So dolorous, lorn and desolate. 

The shores are gray as the sands 
are gray; 

And gray are the trees in their cloaks 
of moss;— 

That gray bird rising and drifting 
away, 


Slow dragging its weary long legs 
across— 

So weary, just over the gray wood’s 
brink ; 

It wearies one, body and soul tothink. 

These vast gray levels of cypress 
wood, 

The gray soldiers’ graves; and so, 
God’s will— 

These cypress-trees’ roots are still 
running blood; 

The smoke of battle in their mosses 
still— 

That gray bird wearily drifting away 

Was startled some long-since battle 
day. 


HER PICTURE 


I see her now—the fairest thing 
That ever mocked man’s picturing, 

I picture her as one who drew 
Aside life’s curtain and looked 
through 

The mists of all life’s mystery 
As from a wood to open sea. 

I picture her as one who knew 
How rare is truth to be untrue— 

As one who knew the awful sign 
Of death, of life, of the divine 
Sweet pity of all loves, all hates, 
Beneath the iron-footed fates. 

I picture her as seeking peace, 

And olive leaves and vine-set land; 
While strife stood by on either hand, 


And wrung her tears like rosaries. 

I picture her in passing rhyme 
As of, yet not a part of, these— 

A woman born above her time. 

The soft, wide eyes of wonderment 
That trusting looked you through 
and through; 

The sweet arched mouth, a bow new 
bent, 

That sent love’s arrows swift and 
true. 

That sweet, arched mouth! The 
Orient 

Hath not such pearls in all her stores, 
Nor all her storied, spice-set shores 
Have fragrance such as it hath spent. 







Cljmtmas bp tfje (great 3EUber 

CHRISTMAS BY THE GREAT RIVER 


435 


Oh, lion of the ample earth, 

What sword can cleave thy sinews 
through? 

The south forever cradles you; 

And yet the great North gives you 
birth. 

Go find an arm so strong, so sure, 
Go forge a sword so keen, so true, 
That it can thrust thy bosom 
through; 

Then may this union not endure! 

In orange lands I lean today 
Against thy warm tremendous mouth, 
Oh, tawny lion of the South, 

To hear what story you shall say. 

What story of the stormy North, 
Of frost-bound homes, of babes at 
play, 


What tales of twenty States the day 
You left your lair and leapt forth: 

The day you tore the mountain’s 
breast 

And in the icy North uprose, 

And shook your sides of rains and 
snows, 

And rushed against the South to rest: 

Oh, tawny river, what of they, 

The far North folk? The maiden 
sweet— 

The ardent lover at her feet— 

What story of thy States today! 

• ••••., 

The river kissed my garment’s hem 
And whispered as it swept away: 
“God’s story in all States today 
Is of a babe of Bethlehem.” 


HE LOVES AND RIDES AWAY 


A fig for her story of shame and of 
pride! 

She strayed in the night and her feet 
fell astray; 

The great Mississippi was glad that 
day, 

And that is the reason the poor girl 
died; 

The great Mississippi was glad, I say, 

And splendid with strength in his 
fierce, full pride— 

And that is the reason the poor girl 
died. 


And that was the reason, from first 
to last; 

Down under the dark, still cypresses 
there. 

The Father of Waters he held her 
fast. 

He kissed her face, he fondled her 
hair, 

No more, no more an unloved outcast, 

He clasped her close to his great, 
strong breast, 

Brave lover that loved her last and 
best: 










436 jfyt Hobeg anb 3 &tbes &toap 


Around and around in her watery 
world, 

Down under the boughs where the 
bank was steep, 

And cypress treees kneeled all gnarly 
and curled, 

Where woods were dark as the waters 
were deep, 

Where strong, swift waters were swept 
and swirled, 

Where the whirlpool sobbed and 
sucked in its breath, 

As some great monster that is choking 
to death: 

Where sweeping and swirling 
around and around 

That whirlpool eddied so dark and so 
deep 

That even a populous world might 
have drowned, 

So surging, so vast and so swift its 
sweep— 

She rode on the wave. And the 
trees that weep, 

The solemn gray cypresses leaning 
o’er; 

The roots that ran blood as they 
leaned from the shore! 

She surely was drowned! But she 
should have lain still; 

She should have lain dead as the 
dead under ground; 

She should have kept still as the dead 
on the hill! 

But ever and ever she eddied around, 

And so nearer and nearer she drew 
me there 

Till her eyes met mine in their cold 

dead stare. 


Then she looked, and she looked as 
to look me through ; 

And she came so close to my feet on 
the shore; 

And her large eyes, larger than ever 
before, 

They never grew weary as dead men’s 
do. 

And her hair! as long as the moss that 
swept 

From the cypress trees as they leaned 
and wept. 

Then the moon rose up, and she 

came to see, 

Her long white fingers slow pointing 
there; 

Why, shoulder to shoulder the moon 
with me 

On the bank that night, with her 
shoulders bare, 

Slow pointing and pointing that 
white face out, 

As it swirled and it swirled, and it 
swirled about. 

There ever and ever, around and 
around, 

Those great sad eyes that refused to 
sleep! 

Reproachful sad eyes that had ceased 
to weep! 

And the great whirlpool with its 
gurgling sound! 

The reproachful dead that was not 
yet dead! 

The long strong hair from that shapely 
head! 

Her hair was so long! so marvelous 
long, 






(Queen i 

As she rode and she rode on that 
whirlpool’s breast; 

And she rode so swift, and she rode so 
strong, 

Never to rest as the dead should rest. 

Oh, tell me true, could her hair in the 
wave 

Have grown as grow dead men’s in 
the grave? 

For, hist! I have heard that a 
virgin’s hair 

Will grow in the grave of a virgin 
true, 

Will grow and grow in the coffin 
there, 

Till head and foot it is filled with hair 

All silken and soft—but what say 
you? 

Yea, tell me truly can this be true? 

For oh, her hair was so strangely 
long, 

That it bound her about like a veil of 
night, 

With only her pitiful face in sight! 

As she rode so swift, and she rode so 
strong, 


THE QUEEN 

I dream’d, O Queen, of you, last 
night; 

I can but dream of thee today. 

But dream? Oh! I could kneel and 
pray 

To one, who, like a tender light, 
Leads ever on my lonesome way, 

And will not pass—yet will not stay. 


fflp ©reams 437 

That it wrapped her about, as a 
shroud had done, 

A shroud, a coffin, and a veil in one. 

And oh, that ride on the whirling 
tide! 

That whirling and whirling it is in 
my head, 

For the eyes of my dead they are not 
yet dead, 

Though surely the lady had long since 
died: 

Then the mourning wood by the 
watery grave; 

The moon’s white face to the face in 
the wave. 

That moon I shall hate! For she 
left her place 

Unasked up in heaven to show me 
that face. 

I shall hate forever the sounding 
tide; 

For oh, that swirling it is in my head 

As it swept and it swirled with my 
dead not dead, 

As it gasped and it sobbed as a God 
that had died. 


F MY DREAMS 

I dream’d we roam’d in elden 
land; 

I saw you walk in splendid state, 
With lifted head and heart elate, 

And lilies in your white right hand, 
Beneath your proud Saint Peter's 
dome 

That, silent, lords almighty Rome. 




438 


®})ose ^Perilous ifcpamssf) €pe£ 


A diamond star was in your hair, 

Your garments were of gold and 
snow; 

And men did turn and marvel so, 

And men did say, How matchless 
fair! 

And all men follow’d as you pass’d; 

But I came silent, lone, and last. 

And holy men in sable gown, 

And girt with cord, and sandal shod, 

Did look to thee, and then to God. 

They cross’d themselves, with heads 
held down; 

They chid themselves, for fear that 
they 

Should, seeing thee, forget to pray. 

Men pass’d, men spake in wooing 
word; 

Men pass’d, ten thousand in a line. 


THOSE PERILOl 

Some fragrant trees, 

Some flower-sown seas 
Where boats go up and down, 
And a sense of rest 
To the tired breast 
In this beauteous Aztec town. 

But the terrible thing in this Aztec 
town 

That will blow men’s rest to the 
stormiest skies, 

Or whether they journey or they lie 
down— x 

Those perilous Spanish eyes! 


You stood before the sacred shrine, 
You stood as if you had not heard. 
And then you turn’d in calm com¬ 
mand, 

And laid two lilies in my hand. 

O Lady, if by sea or land 
You yet might weary of all men, 

And turn unto your singer then, 

And lay one lily in his hand, 

Lo! I would follow true and far 
As seamen track the polar star. 

My soul is young, my heart is 
strong; 

O Lady, reach a hand today, 

And thou shalt walk the milky way. 
For I will give thy name to song. 
Yea, I am of the kings of thought, 
And thou shalt live when kings are 
not. 


vSPANISH EYES 

Snow walls without, 

Drawn sharp about 
To prop the sapphire skies! 

Two huge gate posts, 

Snow-white like ghosts— 

Gate posts to paradise! j 

But, oh! turn back from the high- 
walled town! 

There is trouble enough in this world 
I surmise, 

Without men riding in regiments 
down— 

Oh, perilous Spanish eyes! 

Mexico City, 1880. 






439 


fWontpmerp at (Quebec 

MONTGOMERY AT QUEBEC 


Sword in hand he was slain; 
The snow his winding sheet; 
The grinding ice at his feet— 
The river moaning in pain. 


Pity and peace at last; 
Flowers for him today 
Above on the battlements gray- 
And the river rolling past. 


THE DEFENSE OF THE ALAMO 


Santa Ana came storming, as a storm 
might come; 

There was rumble of cannon; there 
was rattle of blade; 

There was cavalry, infantry, bugle 
and drum— 

Full seven proud thousand in pomp 
and parade, 

The chivalry, flower of all Mexico; 

And a gaunt two hundred in the 
Alamo! 

And thirty lay sick, and some were 
shot through; 

For the siege had been bitter, and 
bloody, and long. 

“Surrender, or die!”—“Men, what 
will you do?" 

And Travis, great Travis, drew 
sword, quick and strong; 

Drew a line at his feet. ... “ Will 

you come? Will you go? 

I die with my wounded, in the 
Alamo." 

Then Bowie gasped, “Guide me over 
that line! ’ ’ 

Then Crockett, one hand to the 
sick, one hand to his gun, 

Crossed with him; then never a word 
or a sign 


Till all, sick or well, all, all, save 
but one, 

One man. Then a woman stopped 
praying, and slow 

Across, to die with the heroes of the 
Alamo. 

Then that one coward fled, in the 
night, in that night 

When all men silently prayed and 
thought 

Of home; of tomorrow; of God and 
the right; 

Till dawn; then Travis sent his 
single last cannon-shot, 

In answer to insolent Mexico, 

From the old bell-tower of the Alamo. 

Then came Santa Ana; a crescent of 
flame! 

Then the red escalade; then the 
fight hand to hand: 

Such an unequal fight as never had 
name 

Since the Persian hordes butchered 
that doomed Spartan band. 

All day—all day and all night, and 
the morning? so slow, 

Through the battle smoke mantling 
the Alamo. 




440 


8 Jflubtan jface on tfje Jltle 


Then silence! Such silence! Two 
thousand lay dead 

In a crescent outside! And within ? 
Not a breath 

Save the gasp of a woman, with gory, 
gashed head, 

All alone, with her dead there, 
waiting for death; 

And she but a nurse. Yet when shall 
we know 

Another like this of the Alamo? 

A NUBIAN FACE 

One night we touched the lily 
shore, 

And then passed on, in night indeed, 

Against the far white waterfall. 


Shout “Victory, victory, victory 
ho!" 

I say, 'tis not always with the hosts 
that win; 

I say that the victory, high or low, 

Is given the hero who grapples with 
sin, 

Or legion or single; just asking to 
know 

When duty fronts death in his 
Alamo. 

ON THE NILE 

I saw no more, shall know no more 

Of her for aye. And you who read 

This broken bit of dream will smile, 

Half vexed that I saw aught at all. 


PETER COOPER 


Honor and glory forever more 
To this good man gone to rest; 
Peace on the dim Plutonian shore; 
Rest in the land of the blest. 


I reckon him greater than any 
man 

That ever drew sword in war; 


Nobler, better than king or khan, 
Better, wiser by far. 

Aye, wisest he is in this whole wide 
land, 

Of hoarding till bent and gray; 

For all you can hold in your cold, 
dead hand 

Is what you have given away. 


THE DEAD MILLIONAIRE 


The gold that with the sunlight 
lies 

In bursting heaps at dawn, 

The silver spilling from the skies 
At night to walk upon, 


The diamonds gleaming in the dew 
He never saw, he never knew. 


He got some gold, dug from the mud, 
Some silver, crushed from stones; 








(©arfieltj 


441 


But the gold was red with dead men’s 
blood, 

The silver black with groans; 


And when he died he moaned aloud 
“They’ll make no pocket in my 
shroud.” 


GARFIELD 

“ Bear me out of the battle, for lo, I am sorely wounded .” 


From out of the vast, wide 
bosomed West, 

Where gnarled old maples make 
array, 

Deep scarred from Redmen gone to 
rest, 

Where unnamed heroes hew the way 
For worlds to follow in their quest, 
Where pipes the quail, where squirrels 
play 

Through tops of trees with nuts for 
toy, 

A boy stood forth clear-eyed and tall, 
A timid boy, a bashful boy, 

Yet comely as a son of Saul— 

A boy all friendless, all unknown, 

Yet heir apparent to a throne: 

A throne the proudest yet on earth 
For him who bears him noblest, best, 
And this he won by simple worth, 
That boy from out the wooded West. 
And now to fall! Pale-browed and 
prone 


He lies in everlasting rest. 

The nations clasp the cold, dead 
hand; 

The nations sob aloud at this; 

The only dry eyes in the land 
Now at the last we know are his; 
While she who sends a wreath has 
won 

More conquests than her hosts had 
done. 

Brave heart, farewell. The wheel 
has run 

Full circle, and behold a grave 
Beneath thy loved old trees is done. 
The druid oaks look up and wave 
A solemn beckon back. The brave 
Old maples welcome, every one. 
Receive him, earth. In center land, 
As in the center of each heart, 

As in the hollow of God’s hand, 

The coffin sinks. And we depart 
Each on his way, as God deems best 
To do, and so deserve to rest. 

CARNEGIE 

But I’d rather twist 

4 

Carnegie’s wrist, 

That open hand in this 

Than shake hands with ye all. 


TO ANDREW 

Hail, fat king Ned! 

Hail, fighting Ted, 

Grand William, 

Grim Oom Paul! 





442 


Htttcoln Park 

LINCOLN PARK 


Unwalled it lies, and open as the sun 
When God swings wide the dark 
doors of the East. 

Oh, keep this one spot, still this one, 
Where tramp or banker, laymen or 
high priest, 


May equal meet before the face of 
God: 

Yea, equals stand upon that common 
sod 

Where they shall one day equals be 
Beneath, for aye, and all eternity. 


RESURGO SAN FRANCISCO 


This tall, strong City stands today 
The fairest, comeliest fashionings 
Of marble, granite, concrete, clay 
That ever fell from human hand; 
That ever flourished sea or land, 

Or wooed the sea-world’s wide white- 
wings. 

This concrete City stands today, 

The newest, truest, man has wrought; 
The kindest, cleanest, strongest, yea 
Twice strongest City, deed or 
thought, 

Thrice strongest ever lost or won— 
Thrice strongest wall, without, within 
That is or ever yet has been 
Beneath the broad path of the Sun. 

Behold her Seven Hills loom white 
Once more as marble-builded Rome. 
Her marts teem with a touch of home 
And music fills her halls at night; 

Her streets flow populous, and light 
Floods every happy, hopeful face; 
The wheel of fortune whirls apace 
And old-time fare and dare hold sway. 
Farewell the blackened,toppling wall, 
The bent steel gird, the somber pall— 
Farewell forever, let us pray; 
Farewell forever and a day! 


How beauteous her lifted brow! 

How heartfelt her harmonious song! 
How strong her heart, how more than 
strong 

She stands rewrought, refashioned 
now! 

Her concrete bastions, knit with steel, 
Sing symphonies in stately forms, 
Make harmonies that mock at storms, 
Make music that you can but feel. 
And yet, and yet what ropes of 
sand, 

What wisps of straw in God’s right 
hand— 

And 3^et, my risen city, yet 
Your prophets must not now forget: 

Must not forget how you laid hold 
This whole west world as all your 
own— 

How sat this sea-bank as a throne, 
How strewed these very streets with 
gold, 

How laid hard tribute, land and sea, 
Heaped silver, gold incessantly! 

The simple Mexicans’ broad lands 
You coveted, thrust forth both hands, 
Then bade Ramona plead her cause 
In unknown language, unknown laws! 




&egurgo i?an Jfrancifito 


443 


You robbed her, robbed her without 
shame: 

Ay, even of her virtuous name! 

Nor shall your prophets now forget, 
Now that you stand sublimely 
strong, 

How when these vast estates were set 
With granaries that burst in song, 
You spumed the heathen at your 
feet 

Because he begged to toil to eat; 
Because he plead with bended head 
For work, for work and barely bread. 
Yea, how you laughed his lack of 
pride, 

And lied and laughed, and laughed 
and lied 

And mocked him, in your pride and 
hate, 

Then in his gaunt face banged your 
Gate! 

Nay, not forget, now that you rise 
Triumphant, strong as Abram’s song, 
How that you lied the lie of lies 
And wrought the Nipponese such 
wrong, 

Then sent your convict chief to plead 
The President expel them hence. 

Ah me, what black, rank insolence! 
What rank, black infamy indeed! 
Because their ways, their hands were 
clean, 

You feared the difference between, 
Feared they might surely be preferred 
Above your howling, convict herd! 

Their sober, sane life put to shame 
Your noisome, drunken penal band 
That howled in Labor's sacred name, 


Nor wrought, nor even lifted hand, 
Save but to stone and mock and moil 
Their betters who but asked to toil. 
Yon harvest-fields cried out as when 
Your country cries for fighting men, 
And yet your hordes, by force and 
fraud, 

Forbade this first, last law of God! 
And you! You sat supinely by 
And gathered gold, nor reckoned why! 

Your great, proud men heaped gold 
on gold; 

They heaped deep cellars with such 
hoard 

Of costliest wines, rich, rare, and old 
As never Thebes or Babel stored— 
They sat at wine till ghostly 
dawn. . . . 

The ides had come but had not gone; 
For lo! the writing on the wall 
And then the surge, the topple, fall— 
Then dust, then darkness, then such 
light 

As never yet lit day or night, 

And there was neither night nor day, 
For night and day were burned away! 

Hear me once more, my city, heed! 

I may not kiss again your tears 
Nor point your drunken, grasping 
greed, 

For I am stricken well with years, 
But do ye as you erst have done, 
Despise His daughter, mock His 
son— 

If still the sow her wallow keeps 
And wine runs as a rivulet, 

My harp hangs where the willow 
weeps. 




444 


Cuba lUbre 


Nay, nay, I must not now forget 
The sin, the shame, the feast, the fall, 
The red handwriting on the wall. 

Then let me not behold once more 
Your flowing cellars, mile on mile, 

A sea of flame, without a shore 
Or even one lone, lifted isle. 

Let me not hear it, feel it choke, 

A wild beast choking in his chain 
The while he tugs and leaps in vain 
And drinks his death of flaming 
smoke. 

Spare me this nightmare, pray you 
spare 

This black three days of blank 
despair! 

Spare me this red-black, surging sea 
Of leaping, choking agony. 

I call one witness, only one, 

In proof that God is God, and jus't: 
Yon high-heaved dome, debris and 
dust. 

With torn lips lifted to the sun, 

In desolation still, lords all— 

The rent and ruined City Hall. 


And here throbbed San Francisco’s 
heart, 

And here her madness held high 
mart— 

Sold justice, sold black shame, sold 
hell. 

And here, right here, God’s high hand 
fell, 

Fell hardest, hottest, first and 
worst— 

Your huge high Hall, the most 
accurst! 

Therefore I say tempt not the fates. 

Love meekness more, love folly less. 

The stranger housed within thy gates 

Hold sacred in his lowliness. 

That pride which runs before a fall— 

Behold God’s Angels fell from pride! 

And He, the lowly crucified? 

Ye would have stoned Him, one and 
all. 

Beware the pride of race, beware 

The pride of creed, long pompous 
prayer— 

Who made your High Priest higher 
than 

The humblest, honest Chinaman? 


CUBA LIBRE 


Comes a cry from Cuban water— 
From the warm, dusk Antilles— 
From the lost Atlanta’s daughter, 
Drowned in blood as drowned in 
seas; 

Comes a cry of purpled anguish— 
See her struggles, hear her cries! 
Shall she live, or shall she languish? 
Shall she sink, or shall she rise? 


She shall rise, by all that’s holy! 

She shall live and she shall last; 
Rise as we, when crushed and lowly, 
From the blackness of the past. 
Bid her strike! Lo, it is written,— 
Blood for blood and life for life. 
Bid her smite, as she is smitten; 
Behold, our stars were born of 
strife! 




®fic ©call £?ar 


445 


Once we flashed her lights of freedom, 

Lights that dazzled her dark eyes 

Till she could but yearning heed 
them, 

Reach her hands and try to rise. 

Then they stabbed her, choked her, 
drowned her, 

Till we scarce could hear a note. 

Ah! these rusting chains that bound 
her! 

Oh! these robbers at her throat! 

And the kind who forged these 
fetters? 

Ask five hundred years for news. 

Stake and thumbscrew for their 
betters? 


THE 


A storm burst forth! From out the 
storm 

The clean, red lightning leapt, 

And lo! a prostrate royal form . . . 

And Alexander slept! 

Down through the snow, all smoking, 
warm, 

Like any blood, his crept. 

Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead! 

One red spot in the snow, 

For one long damning line of red, 
Where exiles endless go— 

The babe at breast, the mother’s head 
Bowed down, and dying so. 

• •••••• 

And did a woman do this deed? 

Then build her scaffold high, 


Inquisitions! Banished Jews! 
Chains and slavery! What reminder 
Of one red man in that land? 

Why, these very chains that bind 
her 

Bound Columbus, foot and hand! 

She shall rise as rose Columbus, 
From his chains, from shame and 
wrong— 

Rise as Morning, matchless, won¬ 
drous— 

Rise as some rich morning song— 
Rise a ringing song and story, 

Valor, Love personified. . . . 
Stars and stripes, espouse her glory, 
Love and Liberty allied. 


D CZAR 

That all may on her forehead read 

Her martyr’s right to die! 

Ring Cossack round on royal steed! 

Now lift her to the sky! 

But see! From out the black hood 
shines 

A light few look upon! 

Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep 
mines, 

A star at burst of dawn! . . . 

A thud! A creak of hangman’s 
lines!— 

A frail shape jerked and 
drawn! . . . 

The Czar is dead; the woman dead, 

About her neck a cord. 

In God’s house rests his royal head— 

Hers in a place abhorred— 





446 


®f)e iUttle proton fflatt 


Yet I had rather have her bed 
Than thine, most royal lord! 
Aye, rather be that woman dead, 
Than thee, dead-living Czar, 


To hide in dread, with both hands red, 
Behind great bolt and bar . . . 
You may control to the North Pole, 
But God still guides his star. 


THE LITTLE BROWN MAN 


Where now the brownie fisher-lad? 
His hundred thousand fishing- 
boats 

Rock idly in the reedy moats; 

His baby wife no more is glad. 

But yesterday, with all Nippon, 
Beneath his pink-white cherry- 
trees, 

In chorus with his brown, sweet bees, 
He careless sang, and sang right on. 
Take care! for he has ceased to sing; 
His startled bees have taken wing! 

His cherry-blossoms drop like blood; 

His bees begin to storm and sting; 
His seas flash lightning, and a flood 
Of crimson stains their wide, white 
ring; 

His battle-ships belch hell, and all 
Nippon is but one Spartan wall! 
Aye, he, the boy of yesterday, 

Now holds the bearded Russ at bay; 
While, blossom’d steeps above, the 
clouds 

Wait idly, still, as waiting shrouds. 

But oh, beware his scorn of death, 
His love of Emperor, of isles 
That boast a thousand bastioned 
miles 

Above the clouds where never 
breath 


Of frost or foe has ventured yet, 

Or foot of foreign man has set! 
Beware his scorn of food (his fare 
Is scarcely more than sweet sea- 
air); 

Beware his cunning, sprite-like skill— 
But most beware his dauntless will. 

Goliath, David, once again, 

The giant and the shepherd 
youth— 

The tallest, smallest of all men, 

The trained in tongue, the trained 
in truth. 

Beware this boy, this new mad man ; 

That erst mad man of Macedon, 
Who drank and died at Babylon; 

That shepherd lad; the Corsican— 
They sat the thrones of earth! Be¬ 
ware 

This new mad man whose drink is 
air! 

His bees are not more slow to strife, 
But, stirred, they court a common 
death! 

He knows the decencies of life— 

Of all men underneath the sun 
He is the one clean man, the one 
Who never knew a drunken breath! 
Beware this sober, wee brown man, 
Who yesterday stood but a span 





Cfjilfeoot $as£( 


447 


Beneath his blossom’d cherry-trees, 
Soft singing with his brother bees! 

The brownie’s sword is as a snake, 

A sudden, sinuous copperhead: 

It makes no flourish, no mistake*, 

It darts but once—the man is 
dead! 


’Tis short and black; ’tis never seen 
Save when, close forth, it leaps its 
sheath 

And, snake-like, darts up from be¬ 
neath. 

But oh, its double edge is keen! 

It strikes but once, then on, right on: 
The sword is gone—the Russ is gone! 


CHILKOOT PASS 


And you, too, banged at the Chilkoot, 

That rock-locked gate to the golden 
door! 

These thunder-built steeps have 
words built to suit, 

And whether you prayed or whether 
you swore 

’Twere one where it seemed that an 
oath was a prayer— 

Seemed God couldn’t care, 

Seemed God wasn’t there! 

And you, too, climbed to the Klon- 
dyke 

And talked, as a friend, to those 
five-horned stars! 

With muckluck shoon and with 
tal spike 

You, too, bared head to the bars, 

The heaven-built bars where morning 
is bom, 

And drank with maiden morn 
From Klondyke’s golden horn! 

THE FOURTH IN 

Sail, sail yon skies of cobalt blue, 

O star-built banner of the brave! 


And you, too, read by the North 
Lights 

Such sermons as never men say! 

You sat and sat with the midnights 

That sit and that sit all day; 

You heard the silence, you heard the 
room, 

Heard the glory of God in the 
gloom 

When the icebergs boom and boom! 

Then come to my Sunland, my 
soldier, 

Aye, come to my heart and to 
stay; 

For better crusader or bolder 

Bared never a breast to the fray. 

And whether you prayed or whether 
you cursed 

You dared the best and you dared 
the worst 

That ever brave man durst. 


We follow you, exult in you 

Or Arctic peak or sapphire wave; 


HAWAIIAN WATERS 






448 


ILisfjt of tfje iboutfjern Cross! 


From mornlit Maine to dusk Luzon, 
Or set of sun or burst of dawn. 

From Honolulu’s Sabbath seas, 
From battle-torn Manila’s bay 
We toss you bravely to the breeze 
This nation’s natal day to stay— 
To stay, to lead, lead on and on 
Or set of sun or burst of dawn. 


O ye who fell at Bunker Hill, 

O ye who fought at Brandywine, 
Behold your stars triumphant still; 
Behold where Freedom builds her 
shrine, 

Where Freedom still leads on and 
on, 

Or set of sun or burst of dawn. 


LIGHT OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS 

A POEM ON THE UNION OF THE OCEANS AT PANAMA 


Espousal of the vast, void seas, 
Where God’§ spirit moved upon 
The waters ere the burst of dawn 
Is of creation’s majesties— 

God’s six days’ work was not quite 
done 

Till man made these two seas as one. 

The piteous story of men drowned, 
The beauteous story of the dove, 

And olive leaf and God’s great love 
Still lives wherever man is found, 
And still His rainbow banners rise 
Above the cloud-embattled skies. 

Behold, the gaudy ships of Spain 
With cross-hilt sword dared distant 
seas, 

Dared death and the Antipodes, 

To find the farthest, utmost main. 
They found it—and such ruin laid 
That e’en dusk Paynim were dis¬ 
mayed. 

They found it, found the vast void 
seas 


Where God had said, “Let there be 
light.” 

They turned God’s morning into 
night 

With cross-bone banner to the 
breeze— 

Their trust was pike and sword and 
shot 

And all was as if God were not. 

They made a trade of war. They 
laid 

Such tribute in their greed for gold 

On helpless heathen, young and old, 

That slavery grew a common trade. 

They built great ships, they said all 

seas 

Be but the passive serfs of these. 

They gathered as in one great breath 

Huge battleships of all the seas, 

With not one note of love or peace— 

Huge isles of steel all rank with death, 

Death manned and bannered, gold 
on gold, 

A thousand slaves in each dark hold. 




IWgfjt of tfje ^outfjern Cross 


449 


Which shall prevail, mad men of 
strife 

With steel-built walls, shot, shell and 
sword, 

Or loving angels of the Lord 
With peace and love and precious life? 
“Peace, peace on earth, goodwill to 
men,” 

God's angels sang, but what since 
then? 

Two thousand years of doubts and 
fears 

Since angels sang God’s message clear 
To men who could not choose but 
hear— 

And still man’s tyranny and tears, 
And still great decks of guns and 
gold— 

A thousand slaves in each dark hold! 

They sailed, they met at Panama, 

A thousand bannered battleships, 
With great guns loaded to the lips, 
To laugh, to mock God’s love and 
law; 

When lo! a peace upon them lay 
Like to that holy natal day. 

And men all mute with wonderment, 
Famed martial men sword-girt and 
bold, 

Looked up and suddenly—behold! 
The boundless heavens sown and 
blent 

With such soft beauteous blaze of 
light 

As shepherds knew that natal night. 

The love-lit Southern Cross o’er- 
spread 


The heavens as that one great star 
That led the wise men from afar 
To find that humble tavern shed 
Where Mary Mother waited them 
Within the walls of Bethlehem. 

Now great men garmented with gold 
Forgot their pride, forgot their state, 
Their love of war, their piteous hate, 
And called their mute slaves from the 
hold. 

The cross of stars gave forth such 
light 

They could but see and know the 
right. 

The star-built cross stood out so clear 
Great sword-girt men forgot to say 
But silent, crossed themselves to 
pray, 

And there leaned, listening, to hear 
His angels sing as on that morn 
The Christ at Bethlehem was born. 

The seas lay like a harvest land; 
White ships were lilies stately, fair, 
White peace lay on them like a 
prayer, 

Vast peace poured down so bless’d, 
so bland— 

The rich unfolding of a rose 
That only dewy morning knows. 

’Tis done! The seven seas are one 
Without the rending of a sheet, 
Without one signal of defeat, 
Without the firing of a gun. 

Go home, you useless battleships, 
Nor open once your iron lips. 


29 



450 


Higfit of tfjc H>outf)eni Cross; 


Mark this! God’s spirit moved upon 
The waters e’er the world was made. 
Mark this! Christ said, “Be not 
afraid.” 

Mark this! Henceforth no sword is 
drawn. 

Mark this! The Deluge, Galilee— 
All waters are but one great sea! 

My brave Evangels, forth and preach 
The love of beauty, cloud or clod, 
The love that leads to love of God, 
The God in all, the good in each. 

For God has said of weed or wood, 
“Behold, it all is very good.” 

Teach man the love of man and teach 
The grace of Faith, Hope, Charity, 
The bare brown earth, the blossomed 
tree. 

To hear these high priests preach and 
preach 

In sweet persistent harmony— 

What chorus like the wind-kissed 
tree? 

Is man to be the last on earth 
To slay his kind, to rend and tear? 
Behold the monstrous great cave bear 
Has passed, her huge paws nothing 
worth, 

With all her kindred beast of prey, 
Shall man be last, so less than they? 

Let there be light, the light that was 
That first, vast void and voiceless day 
When God pushed darkness far away 
And spake the first creative cause. 

Let there be light, the light of love, 
The lift of sun-lit boughs above. 


Come, let us consecrate the trees 
To God, with neither creed nor rule. 
Each bough to be a vestibule 
Broad open, breezy as the seas, 

A song, a sermon, in each leaf— 

His birds they are so wisely brief. 

God loves the man who loves a tree, 
The plumed tree “pleasant to the 
sight.” 

His birds sing on in sweet delight, 
Low voiced and ever pleasantly, 

Of Him who rears it from the seed 
As next to God in word and deed. 

And he who plants a stony steep 
Or wards some wooded, watered 
glade. 

Where man may not make them 
afraid, 

The while they nest or clucking 
creep 

The tall, green, fragrant, growing 
sod, 

They sense in partnership with God. 

To hear the chant of topmost trees 
That lord Sierra’s silent steep, 

When earth and sky are hushed in 
sleep, 

Is heeding heaven’s mysteries, 

So deeper than the song of seas 
And sweeter than man’s harmonies. 

I beg, I plead for Light, “more 
Light.” 

I think if man might only see 
The beauty, glory, majesty 
Of but the humblest plant in sight, 
He then might learn to lift his eyes 
Up, up to the majestic skies; 



lUgfjt of tfje S>outfjern Croate 


And seeing there the peace of all, 
The silent, happy harmony, 

He then might pause a breath and he 
Might let his glad eyes restful fall 
To earth, and in each fragrant sod 
First sense the living soul of God. 

And seeing good, of all a part, 

Some tithe of good, but yet the seed 
Of greater things in word and deed; 
He then might take man to his heart 
And lead him loving into light 
From out his narrow walls of night. 

My brave Evangels, pity hate! 

God’s pity for such fellowkind, 

The blind who lead the doubly blind, 
God’s pity for such piteous state! 
Man is not wicked, man is weak— 
He smites, turn then the other cheek. 

The morning stars forever sing 
From out the awful arch of night: 
“Let there be Light, let there be 
Light, 

God’s Light, forever pitying!” 

Poor man made blind with haste and 
hate, 

Who will not see God’s open gate! 

My swordless, brave Evangelist, 

Lead forth, lead up the shining way 
Saint Paul, that blest, immortal day, 
Uprose from out the blinding mist, 
The kingliest figure man may see 
This side the Cross of Calvary. 

And what, when red swords rust and 
rust 

And glittering ploughshares greet the 
sun? 


451 

Ah me, what deed shall then be 
done— 

What worlds of valor, duty, trust— 
What worlds of thought, what un¬ 
known seas 

Of shoreless, deep discoveries! 

When man shall lift his face and look 
Straight in at heaven’s opened door, 
What courage to explore, explore 
And read God’s beauteous star- 
strewn book, 

What songs of conquest, sea and air, 
When man shall truly do and dare! 

What are the stars for, tell me, man? 
I say He made each one, that they, 
Bright stars, or dimmest Milky Way, 
Are peopled to His will and plan; 
Behold each street of stars is fair 
And peopled with His perfect care. 

No, nature wastes not one brief 
breath: 

She knows no void, unpeopled place. 
Then tell me not that yon vast space 
Is voiceless as the doors of death, 
That all is but a desert where 
His stars stretch upward as a stair. 

Believe it not. As well believe 
That the wise Vestal Virgins bore 
Brown waters from wild Tiber’s 
shore 

Unto their shrine in open sieve. 

As well believe white marble shed 
Red blood the while prone Cassar 
bled. 

Columbus of the cobalt blue, 

Rise up and pierce thy chartless main, 






452 


Hijjfjt of tfje gboutfjern Cross 


Bring glory, bring glad news again 
As you were wont of old to do: 

Bring news of new worlds while men 
scoff— 

Yon worlds we see but know not of. 

Fare forth in Faith, devoted, fond, 
Forgetful of the mocking shore— 
Explore, explore and still explore— 
Beyond, beyond and still beyond: 
You could not see one dimmest speck 
Of Indies from your Nina’s deck. 

Yet here above all brooding night, 
Lo, every street of heaven strewn 
With worlds far brighter thanour own, 
And each as some brave beacon 
light;— 

Fare forth and light us up the way 
To Light, to Light and endless Day. 

Fare forth above earth’s urge and 
roar— 

The morning stars sang at earth’s 
dawn— 

The morning stars they still sing on— 
Fare forth and hear the stars once 
more 

Sing as they sang to light unfurled 
That primal morning of the world. 


The while you pass high heaven’s 
door 

And voyage on so far, so far 
You speak souls of that utmost star 
And still explore, explore, explore, 
Then back to earth; then death shall 
be 

No more man’s nightmare mystery. 

Then shall we know serene, secure, 

Of scenes beyond the set of sun— 
That life is but a play begun 
That death is but a change of scene, 
A night of rest, ’neath rose and bay 
With bright morn but a breath away. 

The while brave men all unafraid 
Shall conquer elements and space 
And speak tall dim forms face to face 
And find out why the stars were 
made: 

Aye find out whether beck—what 
shores 

Beyond the sea-girt, gray Azores. 

Yea, these the victories of Peace, 

The priceless victories to be 
When men forsake their Polar seas 
And dare God’s door in rivalry: 

When mind shall master force ten¬ 
fold, 

And fear be as a tale that’s told. 






SEMI-HUMOROUS SONGS 


453 

























IN CLASSIC SHADES 


Alone and sad I sat me down 
To rest on Rousseau’s narrow isle 
Below Geneva. Mile on mile, 

And set with many a shining town, 
Tow’rd Dent du Midi danced the 
wave 

Beneath the moon. Winds went and 
came 

And fanned the stars into a flame. 

I heard the far lake, dark and deep, 
Rise up and talk as in its sleep; 

I heard the laughing waters lave 
And lap against the further shore, 

An idle oar, and nothing more 
Save that the isle had voice, and save 
That ’round about its base of stone 
There plashed and flashed the foamy 
Rhone. 

A stately man, as black as tan, 
Kept up a stern and broken round 
Among the strangers on the ground. 

I named that awful African 
A second Hannibal. 

I gat 

My elbows on the table; sat 
With chin in upturned palm to scan 
His face, and contemplate the scene. 
The moon rode by, a crowned queen. 

I was alone. Lo! not a man 
To speak my mother tongue. Ah me! 
How more than all alone can be 
A man in crowds! Across the isle 


My Hannibal strode on. The while 
Diminished Rousseau sat his throne 
Of books, unnoticed and unknown. 

This strange, strong man, with face 
austere, 

At last drew near. He bowed; he 
spake 

In unknown tongues. I could but 
shake 

My head. Then half achill with fear, 
Arose, and sought another place. 
Again I mused. The kings of thought 
Came by, and on that storied spot 
I lifted up a tearful face. 

The star-set Alps they sang a tune 
Unheard by any soul save mine. 
Mont Blanc, as lone and as divine 
And white, seemed mated to the 
moon. 

The past was mine; strong-voiced and 
vast- 

Stern Calvin, strange Voltaire, and 
Tell, 

And two whose names are known too 
well 

To name, in grand procession passed. 

And yet again came Hannibal; 
King-like he came, and drawing 
near, 

I saw his brow was now severe 
And resolute. 


455 




456 


TOjat (Gentle jUtan from Boston 


In tongue unknown 
Again he spake. I was alone, 

Was all unarmed; was worn and sad; 
But now, at last, my spirit had 
Its old assertion. 

I arose, 

As startled from a dull repose; 

With gathered strength I raised a 
hand 

And cried, “I do not understand.” 

His black face brightened as I 
spake; 

He bowed; he wagged his woolly 
head; 

He showed his shining teeth, and said, 
“Sah, if you please, dose tables heah 
Am consecrate to lager beer; 

And, sah, what will you have to 
take?” 


Nott hat I loved that colored cuss— 
Nay! he had awed me all too much— 
But I sprang forth, and with a clutch 
I grasped his hand, and holding thus, 
Cried, “Bring my country’s drink for 
two! ” 

For oh! that speech of Saxon sound 
To me was as a fountain found 
In wastes, and thrilled me through 
and through. 

• ••»••• 

On Rousseau’s isle, in Rousseau’s 
shade, 

Two pink and spicy drinks were 
made, 

In classic shades, on classic ground, 
We stirred two cocktails round and 
round. 


THAT GENTLE MAN FROM BOSTON 

AN IDYL OF OREGON 


Two noble brothers loved a fair 

Young lady, rich and good to see; 

And oh, her black abundant hair! 

And oh, her wondrous witchery! 

Her father kept a cattle farm, 

These brothers kept her safe from 
harm: 

From harm of cattle on the hill; 

From thick-necked bulls loud bellow¬ 
ing 

The livelong morning, long and shrill, 

And lashing sides like anything! 

From roaring bulls that tossed the 
sand 

And pawed the lilies of the land. 


There came a third young man. 
He came 

From far and famous Boston town. 
He was not handsome, was not 
“game,” 

But he could “cook a goose” as brown 
As any man that set foot on 
The mist kissed shores of Oregon. 

This Boston man he taught the 
school, 

Taught gentleness and love alway, 
Said love and kindness, as a rule, 
Would ultimately “make it pay.” 

He was so gentle, kind, that he 
Could make a noun and verb agree. 




VLi)at (gentle jfflati from JSoston 


457 


So when one day these brothers 
grew 

All jealous and did strip to fight, 

He gently stood between the two 
And meekly told them ’twas not right. 
“I have a higher, better plan,” 
Outspake this gentle Boston man. 

“My plan is this: Forget this fray 
About that lily hand of hers; 

Go take your guns and hunt all day 
High up yon lofty hill of firs, 

And while you hunt, my ruffled doves, 
Why, I will learn which one she 
loves.” 

The brothers sat the windy hill, 
Their hair shone yellow, like spun 
gold, 

Their rifles crossed their laps, but still 
They sat and sighed and shook with 
cold. 

Their hearts lay bleeding far below; 
Above them gleamed white peaks of 
snow. 

Their hounds lay crouching slim 
and neat, 

A spotted circle in the grass. 

The valley lay beneath their feet; 
They heard the wide-winged eagles 
pass. 

Two eagles cleft the clouds above; 
Yet what could they but sigh and 
love? 

“If I could die,” the elder sighed, 

1 ‘ My dear young brother here might 
wed.” 

“Oh, would to heaven I had died!” 


The younger sighed with bended 
head. 

Then each looked each full in the face 
And each sprang up and stood in place. 

“If I could die”—the elder spake, 
“Die by your hand, the world would 
say 

’Twas accident—; and for her sake, 
Dear brother, be it so, I pray.” 

*‘ Not that!” the younger nobly said; 
Then tossed his gun and turned his 
head. 

And fifty paces back he paced! 

And as he paced he drew the ball; 
Then sudden stopped and wheeled 
and faced 

His brother to the death and fall! 
Two shots rang wild upon the air! 
But lo! the two stood harmless there! 

Two eagles poised high in the air; 
Far, far below the bellowing 
Of bullocks ceased, and everywhere 
Vast silence sat all questioning. 
Thespotted hounds ran circling round, 
Their red, wet noses to the ground. 

And now each brother came to 
know 

That each had drawn the deadly ball; 
And for that fair girl far below 
Had sought in vain to silent fall. 

And then the two did gladly “shake,” 
And thus the elder gravely spake: 

“ Now let us run right hastily 
And tell the kind schoolmaster all! 

Yea! yea! and if she choose not me. 
But all on you her favors fall, 




Militant proton of Oregon 


458 

This valiant scene, till all life ends, 

Dear brother, binds us best of friends. 

The hounds sped down, a spotted 
line, 

The bulls in tall abundant grass 

Shook back their horns from bloom 
and vine, 

And trumpeted to see them pass— 

They loved so good, they loved so 
true, 

These brothers scarce knew what to 
do. 

They sought the kind schoolmaster 
out 

As swift as sweeps the light of morn— 

They could but love, they could not 
doubt 

This man so gentle, “in a horn,” 

They cried: “Now whose the lily 
hand— 

That lady’s of this emer’ld land?” 

They bowed before that big-nosed 
man, 


That long-nosed man from Boston 
town; 

They talked as only lovers can, 

They talked, but he would only frown 
And still they talked and still they 
plead; 

It was as pleading with the dead. 

At last this Boston man did 
speak— 

‘ * Her father has a thousand ceows, 
An hundred bulls, all fat and sleek; 
He also had this ample heouse.” 

The brothers’ eyes stuck out thereat 
So far you might have hung your hat. 

“I liked the looks of this big 
heouse— 

My lovely boys, won’t you come in? 
Her father had a thousand ceows'— 
He also had a heap o’ tin. 

The guirl? Oh yes, the guirl, you 

see 1 — 

The guirl, this morning married me.” 


WILLIAM BROWN OF OREGON 


They called him Bill, the hired 
man, 

But she, her name was Mary Jane, 
The squire’s daughter; and to reign 
The belle from Ber-she-be to Dan 
Her little game. How lovers rash 
Got mittens at the spelling school! 
How many a mute, inglorious fool 
Wrote rhymes and sighed and dyed z — 
mustache? 

This hired man had loved her long, 
Had loved her best and first and last, 


Her very garments as she passed 
For him had symphony and song. 

So when one day with flirt and frown 
She called him “Bill,” he raised his 

head, 

He caught her eye and faltering said, 

“ I love you; and my name is Brown. ” 

She fairly waltzed with rage; she 
wept; 

You would have thought the house 
on fire. 

She told her sire, the portly squire, 





459 


William Proton of ©regon 


Then smelt her smelling-salts and 
slept. 

Poor William did what could be done; 
He swung a pistol on each hip, 

He gathered up a great ox-whip 
And drove right for the setting sun. 

He crossed the big backbone of 
earth, 

He saw the snowy mountains rolled 
Like mighty billows; saw the gold 
Of great big sunsets; felt the birth 
Of sudden dawn upon the plain; 

And every night did William Brown 
Eat pork and beans and then lie down 
And dream sweet dreams of Mary 
Jane. 

Her lovers passed. Wolves hunt 
in packs, 

They sought for bigger game; some¬ 
how 

They seemed to see about her brow 
The forky signs of turkey tracks. 

The teeter-board of life goes up, 

The teeter-board of life goes down, 
The sweetest face must learn to 
frown; 

The biggest dog has been a pup. 

O maidens! pluck not at the air; 
The sweetest flowers I have found 
Grow rather close unto the ground 
And highest places are most bare. 
Why, you had better win the grace 
Of one poor cussed Af-ri-can 
Than win the eyes of every man 
In love alone with his own face. 

At last she nursed her true desire. 
She sighed, she wept for William 

Brown. 


She watched the splendid sun go down 
Like some great sailing ship on fire, 
Then rose and checked her trunks 
right on; 

And in the cars she lunched and 
lunched, 

And had her ticket punched and 
and punched, 

Until she came to Oregon. 

She reached the limit of the lines, 
She wore blue specs upon her nose, 
Wore rather short and manly clothes, 
And so set out to reach the mines. 
Her right hand held a Testament, 
Her pocket held a parasol, 

And thus equipped right on she went, 
Went water-proof and water-fall. 

She saw a miner gazing down, 

Slow stirring something with a spoon; 
“O, tell me true and tell me soon, 
What has become of William Brown?” 
He looked askance beneath her specs, 
Then stirred his cocktail round and 
round, 

Then raised his head and sighed pro¬ 
found, 

And said, “He’s handed in his 
checks.” 

Then care fed on her damaged 
cheek, 

And she grew faint, did Mary Jane, 
And smelt her smelling salts in vain, 
Yet wandered on, way-worn and 
weak. 

At last upon a hill alone, 

She came, and there she sat her down; 
For on that hill there stood a stone, 
And, lo! that stone read, “William 
Brown.” 





460 


Horace <@reelep’g 30rtoe 


“O William Brown! O William 
Brown! 

And here you rest at last,” she said, 
“With this lone stone above your 
head, 

And forty miles from any town! 

I will plant cypress trees, I will, 

And I will build a fence around, 

And I will fertilize the ground 
With tears enough to turn a mill.” 

She went and got a hired man, 

She brought him forty miles from 
town, 

And in the tall grass squatted down 
And bade him build as she should 
plan. 

But cruel cowboys with their bands 
They saw, and hurriedly they ran 
And told a bearded cattle man 
Somebody builded on his lands. 

He took his rifle from the rack, 

He girt himself in battle pelt, 

HORACE GRE 

The old stage-drivers of the brave 
old days! 

The old stage-drivers with their dash 
and trust! 

These old stage-drivers they have 
gone their ways 

But their deeds live on, though their 
bones are dust; 

And many brave tales are told and 
retold 

Of these daring men in the days of old: 

Of honest Hank Monk and his 
Tally-Ho, 


He stuck two pistols in his belt, 

And mounting on his horse’s back, 
He plunged ahead. But when they 
shewed 

A woman fair, about his eyes 
He pulled his hat, and he likewise 
Pulled at his beard, and chewed and 
chewed. 

At last he gat him down and spake: 
“O lady, dear, what do you here?” 

‘ ‘ I build a tomb unto my dear, 

I plant sweet flowers for his sake.” 
The bearded man threw his two hands 
Above his head, then brought them 
down 

And cried, “O, I am William Brown, 
And this the corner-stone of my 
lands!” 


And the Prince married her and they 
lived happy ever after. 

LEY’S DRIVE 

When he took good Horace in his 
stage to climb 

The high Sierras with their peaks of 
snow 

And ’cross to Nevada, “and come in 
on time;” 

But the canyon below was so deep— 
oh! so deep— 

And the summit above was so steep— 
oh! so steep! 

The horses were foaming. The 
summit ahead 




Horace (dreelep’s Bribe 


Seemed as far as the stars on a still, 
clear night. 

And steeper and steeper the narrow 
route led 

Till up to the peaks of perpetual 
white; 

But faithful Hank Monk, with his 
face to the snow, 

Sat silent and stem on his Tally-Ho! 

Sat steady and still, sat faithful and 
true 

To the great, good man in his charge 
that day; 

Sat vowing the man and the mail 
should "go through 

On time” though he bursted both 
brace and stay; 

Sat silently vowing, in face of the 
snow, 

He’d "get in on time” with his 
Tally-Ho! 

But the way was so steep and so 
slow—oh! so slow! 

’Twas silver below, and the bright 
silver peak 

Was silver above in its beauty and 
glow. 

An eagle swooped by, Hank saw its 
hooked beak; 

When, sudden out-popping a head 
snowy white— 

“ Mr. Monk, I must lecture in Nevada 
tonight!” 

With just one thought that the 
mail must go through; 

With just one word to the great, good 
man— 


461 

But weary—so weary—the creaking 
stage drew 

As only a weary old creaking stage 
can— 

When again shot the head; came 
shrieking outright: 

"Mr. Monk, I must lecture in Ne¬ 
vada tonight! ” 

Just then came the summit! And 
the far world below, 

It was Hank Monk’s world. But he 
no word spake; 

He pushed back his hat to that fierce 
peak of snow! 

He threw out his foot to the eagle and 
brake! 

He threw out his silk! He threw out 
his reins! 

And the great wheels reeled as if reel¬ 
ing snow skeins! 

The eagle was lost in his crag up 
above! 

The horses flew swift as the swift 
light of morn! 

The mail must go through with its 
message of love, 

The miners were waiting his bright 
bugle horn. 

The man must go through! And 
Monk made a vow 

As he never had failed, why, he 
wouldn’t fail now! 

How his stage spun the pines like a 
far spider’s web! 

It was spider and fly in the heavens 
up there! 

And the clanging of hoofs made the 
blood flow and ebb, 




462 ®fjat Jfaitfiful 

For ’twas death in the breadth of a 
wheel or a hair. 

Once more popped the head, and the 
piping voice cried: 

“Mr. Monk! Mr. Monk!” But no 
Monk replied! 

Then the great stage it swung, as if 
swung from the sky; 

Then it dipped like a ship in the deep 
jaws of death; 

THAT FAITHFUL 

Huge silver snow-peaks, white as 
wool, 

Huge, sleek, fat steers knee deep in 
grass, 

And belly deep, and belly full, 

Their flower beds one fragrant mass 

Of flowers, grass tall-born and grand, 

Where flowers chase the flying snow! 

Oh, high held land in God’s right 
hand, 

Delicious, dreamful Idaho! 

We rode the rolling cow-sown hills, 

That bearded cattle man and I; 

Below us laughed the blossomed rills, 

Above the dappled clouds blew by. 

We talked. The topic? Guess. 
Why, sir, 

Three-fourths of all men’s time they 
keep 

To talk, to think, to be of her; 

The other fourth they give to sleep. 

To learn what he might know, or 
how, 

I laughed all constancy to scorn. 


Mtfe of Sbafjo 

Then the good man he gasped as men 
gasping for breath, 

When they deem it is coming their 
hour to die. 

And again shot the head, like a 
battering ram, 

And the face it was red, and the words 
they were hot: 

“Mr. Monk! Mr. Monk! I don’t 
care a (mill?) dam. 

Whether I lecture in Nevada or not! ” 

WIFE OF IDAHO 

“ Behold yon happy, changeful cow! 
Behold this day, all storm at morn, 
Yet now ’tis changed by cloud and 
sun, 

Yea, all things change—the heart, the 
head, 

Behold on earth there is not one 
That changeth not in love,’’ I said. 

He drew a glass, as if to scan 
The steeps for steers; raised it and 
sighed. 

He craned his neck, this cattle man, 
Then drove the cork home and re¬ 
plied: 

“For twenty years (forgive these 
tears), 

For twenty years no word of strife— 
I have not known for twenty years 
One folly from my faithful wife.” 

I looked that tarn man in the face— 
That dark-browed, bearded cattle 
man. 

He pulled his beard, then dropped in 
place 




463 


Saratoga anl) tfje l&almfet 


A broad right hand, all scarred and 
tan, 

And toyed with something shining 
there 

Above his holster, bright and small. 

I was convinced. I did not care 
To agitate his mind at all. 

But rest I could not. Know I must 
The story of my stalwart guide; 

His dauntless love, enduring trust; 

His blessed and most wondrous bride. 

I wondered, marveled, marveled 
much; 

Was she of Western growth? Was 
she 

Of Saxon blood, that wife with such 
Eternal truth and constancy? 

I could not rest until I knew— 
“Now twenty years, my man,” I 
said, 

“Is a long time.” He turned, he drew 
A pistol forth, also a sigh. 

“ ’Tis twenty years or more,” sighed 
he. 

“Nay, nay, my honest man, I vow 

SARATOGA AND 

These famous waters smell like— 
well, 

Those Saratoga waters may 
Taste just a little of the day 
Of judgment; and the sulphur smell 
Suggests, along with other things, 

A climate rather warm for springs. 

But restful as a twilight song, 

The land where every lover hath 
A spring, and every spring a path 


I do not doubt that this may be; 

But tell, oh! tell me truly how?” 

“ ’Twould make a poem, pure and 
grand; 

All time should note it near and far; 
And thy fair, virgin, gold-sown land 
Should stand out like some winter 
star. 

America should heed. And then 
The doubtful French beyond the 
sea— 

’Twould make them truer, nobler men 
To know how this might truly be.” 

“ ’Tis twenty years or more,” urged 
he; 

“Nay, that I know, good guide of 
mine; 

But lead me where this wife may be, 
And I a pilgrim at a shrine, 

And kneeling as a pilgrim true”— 
He, leaning, shouted loud and clear: 
“I cannot show my wife to you; 
She’s dead this more than twenty 
year.” 

THE PSALMIST 

To lead love pleasantly along. 

Oh, there be waters, not of springs— 
The waters wise King David sings. 

Sweet is the bread that lovers 
eat 

In secret, sang on harp of gold, 
Jerusalem’s high king of old. 

“T'he stolen waters they are sweet!” 
Oh, dear, delicious piracies 
Of kisses upon love’s high seas! 




464 


& ®urkej> ©unt in GPexafi 


The old traditions of our race 
Repeat for aye and still repeat; 

The stolen waters still are sweet 
As when King David sat in place, 
All purple robed and crowned in gold, 
And sang his holy psalms of old. 

Oh, to escape the searching sun; 
To seek these waters over sw r eet; 

To see her dip her dimpled feet 
Where these delicious waters run— 


To dip her feet, nor slip nor fall, 

Nor stain her garment’s hem at all: 

Nor soil the whiteness of her feet, 
Nor stain her whitest garment’s 
hem— 

Oh, singer of Jerusalem, 

You sang so sweet, so wisely sweet! 
vShake hands! shake hands! I guess 
you knew 

For all your psalms, a thing or two. 


A TURKEY HUNT IN TEXAS 

(as told at dinner) 


No, sir; no turkey for me, sir. 
But soft, place it there, 

Lest friends may make question and 
strangers may stare. 

Ah, the thought of that hunt in the 
canon, the blood- 

Nay, gently, please, gently! You 
open a flood 

Of memories, memories melting me 
so 

That I rise in my place and—excuse 
me—I go. 

No? You must have the story? 
And you, lady fair? 

And you, and you all? Why, it’s 
blood and despair; 

And ’twere not kind in me, not manly 
or wise 

To bring tears at such time to such 
beautiful eyes. 

I remember me now the last time I 
told 

This story a Persian in diamonds and 
gold 


Sat next to good Gladstone, there was 
Wales to the right, 

Then a Duke, then an Earl, and such 
ladies in white! 

But I stopped, sudden stopped, lest 
the story might start 
The blood freezing back to each 
feminine heart. 

But they all said, “The story!” just 
as you all have said, 

And the great Persian monarch he 
nodded his head 

.Till his diamond-decked feathers fell, 
glittered and rose, 

Then nodded almost to his Ishmaelite 
nose. 

The story! Ah, pardon! ’Twas 
high Christmas tide 
And just beef and beans; yet the 
land, far and wide, 

Was alive with such turkeys of silver 
and gold, 

As never men bom to the north may 
behold. 





9 Gturfeep $utit tit ®cxas 


And Apaches? Aye, Apaches, and 
they took this game 

In a pen, tolled it in. Might not we 
do the same? 

So two of us started, strewing corn, 
Indian corn, 

Tow'rd a great granite gorge with the 
first flush of morn; 

Started gay, laughing back from the 
broad mesa’s breast, 

At the bravest of men, who but 
warned for the best. 

We built a great pen from the sweet 
cedar wood 

Tumbled down from a crown where 
the sentry stars stood. 

Scarce done, when the turkeys in line 
—such a sight! 

Picking com from the sand, russet 
gold, silver white, 

And so fat that they scarcely could 
waddle or hobble. 

And ’twas “Queek, tukee, queek,” 
and ’twas, “gobble and gobble!’’ 

And their great, full crops they did 
wabble and wabble 

As their bright, high heads they did 
bob, bow and bobble, 

Down, up, through the trench, crowd¬ 
ing up in the pen. 

Now, quick, block the trench! Then 
the mules and the men! 

Springing forth from our cove, 
guns leaned to a rock, 

How we laughed! What a feast! We 
had got the whole flock. 


465 

How we worked till the trench was all 
blocked close and tight, 

For we hungered, and, too, the near 
coming of night, 

Then the thought of our welcome. 
The news? We could hear 

Already, we fancied, the great heart};' 
cheer 

As we rushed into camp and exult- 
ingly told 

Of the mule loads of turkeys in silver 
and gold. 

Then we turned for our guns. Our 
guns? In their place 

Ten Apaches stood there, and five 
guns in each face. 

And we stood! we stood straight 
and stood strong, track solid to 
track. 

What, turn, try to fly and be shot 
in the back? 

No! We threw hats in the air. We 
should not need them more. 

And yelled! Yelled as never yelled 
man or Comanche before. 

We dared them, defied them, right 
there in their lair. 

Why, we leaned to their guns in our 
splendid despair. 

What! spared us for bravery, because 
we dared death? 

You know the tale? Tell it, and 
spare me my breath. 

No, sir. They killed us, killed us 
both, there and then, 

And then nailed our scalps to that 
turkey pen. 


30 



466 


Utelanb 


USLAND 


And where lies Usland, Land of 
Us? 

Where Freedom lives, there Usland 
lies! 

Fling down that map and measure 
thus 

Or argent seas or sapphire skies: 

To north, the North Pole; south, as 
far 

As ever eagle cleaved his way; 

To east, the blazing morning star, 

And west! West to the Judgment 
Day! 

No borrowed lion, rampt in gold; 

No bleeding Erin, plaintive strains; 

No starving millions, mute and cold; 

No plundered India, prone in 
chains; 

THAT USSIAN 

“I am an Ussian true,” he said; 

“Keep off the grass there, Mister 
Bull! 

For if you don’t, I’ll bang your head 

And bang your belly-full. 

“Now mark, my burly jingo-man, 

So prone to muss and fuss and cuss, 

I am an Ussian, spick and span, 

From out the land of Us! ” 

The stout man smole a frosty smile— 

“An Ussian! Russian, Rusk, or 
Russ? ” 

“ No, no! an Ussian, every while; 

My land the land of Us.” 


No peaceful farmer, forced to fly 
Or draw his plowshare from the sod, 

And fighting, one to fifty, die 
For freedom, fireside, and God. 

Fear not, brave, patient, free-born 
Boers, 

Great Usland’s heart is yours to¬ 
day. 

Aye, England’s heart of hearts is 
yours, 

Whatever scheming men may say. 

Her scheming men have mines to sell, 
And we? Why, meat and corn 
and wheat. 

But, Boers, all brave hearts wish you 
well; 

For England’s triumph means 
defeat. 


OF USLAND 

“Aw! Usland, Outland? or, maybe, 

Some Venezuela I’d forgot. 

Hand out your map and let me see 

Where Usland is, and what.” 

The Yankman leaned and spread his 
map 

And shewed the land of Us and 
shewed, 

Then eyed and eyed that paunchy 
chap, 

And pulled his chin and chewed. 

“What do you want?” A face grew 
red, 

And red chop whiskers redder grew. 




S>apis Plato 


467 


“I want the earth,” the Ussian 
said, 

“And all Alaska too. 

“My stars swim up yon seas of blue; 
No Shind am I, Boer, Turk or 
Russ. 


I am an Ussian—Ussian true; 

My land the land of Us. 

“My triple North Star lights me on, 
My Southern Cross leads ever thus; 
My sun scarce sets till burst of dawn. 
Hands off the land of Us!” 


SAYS PLATO 


Says Plato, “Once in Greece the 
gods 

Plucked grapes, pressed wine, and 
reveled deep 

And drowsed below their poppy-pods, 
And lay full length the hills asleep. 
Then, waking, one said, ‘Overmuch 
We toil: come, let us rise and touch 
Red clay, and shape it into man, 
That he may build as we shall plan! ’ 
And so they shaped man, all complete, 
Self-procreative, satisfied; 

Two heads, four hands, four feet. 

“And then the gods slept, heedless, 
long; 

But waking suddenly one day, 

They heard their valley ring with 
song 

And saw man reveling as they. 
Enraged, they drew their swords and 
said, 

‘Bow down! bend down!’—but man 
replied 

Defiant, fearless, everywhere 
His four fists shaking in the air. 

The gods descending cleft in twain 
Each man; then wiped their swords on 
grapes; 

And let confusion reign. 


‘ ‘ And such confusion! each half ran, 
Ran here, ran there; or weep or laugh 
Or what he would, each helpless man 
Ran hunting for his other half. 

And from that day, thenceforth the 
grapes 

Bore blood and flame, and restless 
shapes 

Of hewn-down, helpless halves of 
men, 

Ran searching ever; crazed, as when 
First hewn in twain, they grasped, let 
go, 

Then grasped again; but rarely found 
That lost half once loved so.” 

Now, right or wrong, or false or 
true, 

'Tis Plato’s tale of bitter sweet; 

But I know well and well know you 
The quest keeps on at fever heat. 

Let Love, then, wisely sit and wait! 
The world is round; sit by the gate, 
Like blind Belisarius: being blind, 
Love should not search; Love shall 
not find 

By searching. Brass is so like gold, 
How shall this blind Love know new 
brass 

From pure soft gold of old? 







468 Welcome to tfjc 45 reat American €>cean 


WELCOME TO THE GREAT AMERICAN OCEAN 


Aloha! Wahwah! Quelle raison? 

Ship ahoy! What sails are these? 
What tuneful Orpheus, what Jason 
Courts Colchis and her Golden 
Fleece? 

For never since the oak-keeled Argo 
Such sweet chords, such kingly cargo. 

Never since the mad Magellan 
Dared the Philippines and died, 
Did these boundless billows swell in 
Such surprised and saucy pride. 
Are they laughing, chaffing at you? 
Waiting but to bang and bat you? 

Doughty Vikings, dauntless Norse¬ 
men, 

White-maned stallions plunge and 
fret; 

Ride them, ride them, daring horse¬ 
men, 

Ride or perish in ... . the wet! 
Galleons, doubloons galore 
Paved of old this proud sea floor! 

Carabellos, caballeros! 

Where your boasted Totus Munda? 
Chile came con tamales. ... 

And the bull-£ght of a Sunday! 
That is all there is to say 
Of all your yesterdays, today. 

Heed my heroes, heed the story; 

Gone the argent galleon; 

Gone the gold and gone the glory, 
Gone the gaudy, haughty Don. 

His sword, his pride, sleep side by 
side, 

Nor reck, at all, yond ebb or tide. 


Ye who buckle on bright armor, 

Read and heed nor boast at all 
Till ye have worn it warm and warmer, 
Fronting pride that runs to fall. 
And heed, my heroes, where away 
We all, a span of years today? 

But welcome, walls of flame and 
thunder, 

Isles of steel and miles of launches! 
Welcome to these seas of wonder, 
Men of war with olive branches; 
Welcome to dear Crusoe’s seas, 

These sundown seas, this sun-born 
breeze. 

Welcome to the oldest, newest! 

Here God’s spirit moved upon 
The waters, these the broadest, bluest, 
Ere that sudden burst of dawn 
Dividing day from primal night, 
When He said, “Let there be light.” 

But, beware the wild tornadoes! 

Entre nous, they are terrific! 

Scout that dago’s gay bravados! 

Cut that silly name, Pacific! 

Balboa, wading to his knees, 

Cried: “Lo, the calm, pacific seas!” 

Straightway Cortez hewed his head 
off! 

Nay, blame not, accuse nor cavil. 
Spite of all that has been said of 
He should have hewed it to the 
navel; 

Aye, cut his neck off to his knees, 
For naming these “Pacific Seas!” 





{Etoo (fflfee ©lb jfllen in ©mar'# Hanb 


Pacific? No, American! 

Her go, her get there, gown or gun! 
Her British, “Get, and keep who 
can,” 

All places, races, rolled in one. 
Pacific Ocean? Mild of motion? 
Never such a silly notion! 

So, beware the sometimes tidal 
Wave Tahitian, where bananas 
Bathe; where fig-leafed parties bridal 
Dine in tree-tops on mananas! 


469 

Samoa's typhoons, too, beware— 
Her mermaids combing kinky hair. 

Aye, tidals, typhoons, ’clones beware! 

But when you touch sea-set Nippon, 
Where lift three thousand isles mid¬ 
air, 

And each an Eden dear as dawn, 
With dimpled Eves and dainty elves— 
Why, then beware your bloomin’ 
selves. 


TWO WISE OLD MEN OF OMAR’S LAND 


The world lay as a dream of love, 
Lay drowned in beauty, drowsed in 
peace, 

Lay filled with plenty, fat-increase, 
Lay low-voiced as a wooing dove. 
And yet, poor, blind man was not 
glad, 

But to and fro, contentious, mad, 
Rebellious, restless, hard he sought 
And sought and sought—he scarce 
knew what. 

The Persian monarch shook his head, 
Slow twirled his twisted, raven beard, 
As one who doubted, questioned, 
feared. 

Then called his poet up and said: 
“What aileth man, blind man, that 
he, 

Stiff-necked and selfish, will not see 
Yon gorgeous glories overhead, 
These flowers climbing to the knee, 
As climb sweet babes that loving cling 
To hear a song?—Go forth and sing! ” 


The poet passed. He sang all day, 
Sang all the year, sang many years; 
He sang in joy, he sang in tears, 

By desert way or watered way, 

Yet all his singing was in vain. 

Man would not list, man would not 
heed 

Save but for lust and selfish greed 
And selfish glory and hard gain. 

And so at last the poet sang 
In biting hunger and hard pain 
No more, but tattered, bent and gray, 
He hanged his harp and let it hang 
Where keen winds walked with wintry 
rain, 

High on a willow by the way, 

The while he sought his king to cry 
His failure forth and reason why. 

The old king pulled his thin white 
beard, 

Slow sipped his sherbet nervously, 




470 


®too Wise ©lli ifflett in ©mar’fi Hanli 


Peered right and left, suspicious 
peered, 

Thrummed with a foot as one who 
feared, 

Then fixed hib crown on close; then he 
Clutched tight the wide arm of his 
throne, 

And sat all sullen, sad and lone. 

At last he savagely caught up 
And drained, deep drained, his 
jeweled cup; 

Then fierce he bade his poet say, 

And briefly say, what of the day? 

The trembling poet felt his head, 

He felt his thin neck chokingly. 
“Oh, king, this world is good to see! 
Oh, king, this world is beautiful!” 
The king's thin beard was white as 
wool, 

The while he plucked it terribly, 
Then suddenly and savage said: 
“Cut that! cut that! or lose your 
head!” 

The poet's knees smote knee to knee, 
The poet’s face was pitiful. 

“Have mercy, king! hear me, hear 
me! 

This gorgeous world is beautiful, 

This beauteous world is good to see; 
But man, poor man, he has not time 
To see one thing at all, save one—” 

“Haste, haste, dull poet, and have 
done 

With all such feeble, foolish rime! 
No time? Bah! man, no bit of time 
To see but one thing? Well, that 
one?” 


“That one, oh, king, that one fair 
thing 

Of all fair things on earth to see, 

Oh, king, oh, wise and mighty king, 
That takes man’s time continually, 
That takes man’s time and drinks it 
up 

As you have drained your jeweled 
cup- 

Is woman, woman, wilful, fair— 

Just woman, woman, everywhere! ” 

The king scarce knew what next to 
do; 

He did not like that ugly truth; 

For, far back in his sunny youth, 

He, too, had loved a goodly few. 

He punched a button, punched it 
twice, 

Then as he wiped his beard he said: 
“Oh, threadbare bard of foolish rime, 
If man looks all his time at her, 

Sees naught but her, pray tell me, sir, 
Why, how does woman spend her 
time?” 

The singer is a simple bird, 

The simplest ever seen or heard. 

It will not lie, it knows no thing 
Save but to sing and truly sing. 

The poet reached his neck, his head, 
As if to lay it on the shelf 
And quit the hard and hapless trade 
Of simple truth and homely rime 
That brought him neither peace nor 
pelf; 

Then with his last, faint gasp he said: 
“Why, woman, woman, matron, 
maid, 

She puts in all her precious time 
In looking, looking at herself!” 






®too Wise ©lb iHen in ©mar’s ILanb 


47i 


A silence then was heard to fall 

So hard it broke into a grin! 

The old king thought a space and 
thought 

Of when her face was all in all— 

When love was scarce a wasteful 
sin, 

And even kingdoms were as naught. 

At last he laughed, and in a 
trice 


He banged the button, banged it 
thrice, 

Then clutched his poet’s hand and 
then 

These two white-bearded, wise old 
men 

They sat that throne and chinned and 
chinned, 

And grinned, they did, and grinned 
and grinned! 









SONGS OF THE AMERICAN SEAS 


473 





COLUMBUS 


Behind him lay the gray Azores, 

Behind the Gates of Hercules; 

Before him not the ghost of shores; 

Before him only shoreless seas. 

The good mate said: “Now must 
we pray, 

For lo! the very stars are gone, 

Brave Adm’r’l speak; what shall I 
say?” 

“Why, say: ‘Sail on! sail on! and 
on!’” 

“My men grow mutinous day by 
day; 

My men grow ghastly, wan and 
weak.” 

The stout mate thought of home; a 
spray 

Of salt wave washed his swarthy 
cheek. 

“What shall I say, brave Adm’r’l, 
say, 

If we sight naught but seas at 
dawn?” 

“Why, you shall say at break of 
day: 

‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!’ ” 

They sailed and sailed, as winds 
might blow, 

Until at last the blanched mate 
said: 

“Why, now not even God would 
know 

Should I and all my men fall dead. 


These very winds forget their way, 
For God from these dread seas is 
gone. 

Now speak, brave Adm’r’l, speak and 


He said: “Sail on! sail on! and 
on!” 

They sailed. They sailed. Then 
spake the mate: 

“This mad sea shows his teeth 
tonight. 

He curls his lip, he lies in wait, 

He lifts his teeth, as if to bite! 

Brave Adm’r’l, say but one good 
word: 

What shall we do when hope is 
gone?” 

The words leapt like a leaping sword: 

“ Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on! ” 

Then pale and worn, he paced his 
deck, 

And peered through darkness. 
Ah, that night 

Of all dark nights! And then a 
speck— 

A light! A light! At last a light! 

It grew, a starlit flag unfurled! 

It grew to be Time’s burst of 
dawn. 

He gained a world; he gave that 
world 

Its grandest lesson: “On!sail on!” 


475 




476 


3 gums of Creation 


A SONG OF 

The bravest, manliest man is he 

Who braves the brede, who breaks the 
sod, 

Who sows a seed, who plants a tree, 
Who turns and tears the barren clod, 

In partnership with God is he — 
Himself a very part of God, 

Aye, God's anointed, God's high 
priest. 

And he who sees, who knows to see 
As saw the eager seers of old, 

Is of the '‘wise men of the East," 

Is richer than all Araby 
In incense, myrrh and gifts of gold. 

The noblest woman, bravest, best 
Of all brave souls beneath the sun? 

I say the queenliest is that one — 

Seek north or south or east or west — 
Who loves to fold the little frock 
And hear the cradle rock and rock. 

I say the purest woman, best 
Beneath our forty stars, is she 
Who loves her spouse most ardently 
And rocks the cradle oftenest — 

Who rocks and sings and rocks, and 
then, 

When birds are nesting, rocks again. 

CANTO I 

I 

A yucca crowned in creamy bloom, 

A yucca freighted with perfume, 
Breathed fragrance up the blossomed 
steep; 

The warm sea winds lay half asleep, 
Lay drowsing in the dreamy wold 


CREATION 

By Saint Francisco’s tawny Bay, 

As if to fold, forever fold, 

Worn, wearied wings and rest 
alway 

In careless, languid Arcady. 

II 

Some clean, lean Eucalyptus trees, 
Wind-torn and tossing to the blue, 
Kept ward above the silent two 
Who sat the fragrant sundown seas 
Above the sounding Golden Gate 
Nor questioned overmuch of fate; 
For she was dowered, gold on gold, 
With wealth of face and form un¬ 
told! 

And he was proud and passionate. 

III 

Ten thousand miles of mobile sea— 
This sea of all seas blent as one 
Wide, unbound book of mystery, 

Of awe, of sibyl prophecy, 

Ere yet a ghost or misty ken 
Of God’s far, first Beginning when 
Vast darkness lay upon the deep; 

As when God’s spirit moved upon 
Such waters cradled in such sleep 
Such night as never yet knew dawn, 
Such night as weird atallaph weaves 
But never mortal man conceives. 

IV 

He looked to heaven, God; but 
she 

Saw only his face and the sea. 



a £S>otig of Creation 


477 


He said—his fond face leaned to 
hers, 

The warmest of God’s worshipers— 
“In the beginning? Where and 
when, 

Before the fashioning of men, 

Swung first His high lamps to and 
fro, 

To light us as we (please to go? 

And where the waters, dark deeps 
when 

God spake, and said, ‘Let there be 
light’? 

They still house where they housed, 
as then, 

Dark curtained with majestic night— 
Dusk Silence, in travail of Light 
That knew not man or man’s, at all— 
Steel battle-ship or wood-built wall. 

V 

“Aye, these, these were the waters 
when 

God spake and knew His fair first¬ 
born— 

That silent, new-born baby mom, 
Such eons ere the noise of men. 

His Southern Cross, high-built about 
The deep, set in a town of stars, 
Commemorates, forbids a doubt 
That here first fell God’s golden 
bars— 

Red bars, with soft, white silver 
blent, 

Broad sown from sapphire firma¬ 
ment. 

VI 

“Behold what wave-lights leap and 
run 


Swift up the shale from out the sea 
Inwove with silver, gold and sun! 
Light lingers in the tawny mane 
Of wild oats waving lazily 
Far upon the climbing poppy plain; 
Far up yon steeps of dusk and 
dawn— 

Black night, white light, inwound as 
one. 

But when, when fell that far, first 
dawn 

With ways of gold to walk upon? 

VII 

“I know not when, but only know 
That darkness lay upon yon deep, 
Lay cradled, as a child asleep, 

And that God’s spirit moved upon 
These waters ere the burst of dawn 
When first His high lamps to and 
fro 

Swung forth to guide which way to 
go. 

VIII 

“I only know that Silence keeps 
High court forever still hereon, 

That Silence lords alone these deeps 
The silence of God’s, house, and 
keeps 

Inviolate yon water’s face. 

As if still His abiding place, 

As ere that far, first burst of dawn 
Ere fretful man set sail upon. 

IX 

“The deeps,” he mused, “are still as 
when 




478 


& g>oug of Creation 


Dusk Silence kept her curtained bed 
Low moaning for the birth of 
dawn, 

When she should push black night 
aside, 

As some ghoul nightmare most 
abhorred— 

When she might laughing look upon 
God’s first-born glory, holy Light— 
As when fond Eve exulting cried, 

In mother-pain, with mother-pride, 
‘Behold the fair first-born of men! 

I gat a man-child of the Lord!’” 

X 

As one discerning some sweet nook 
Of wild oats, mantling yellow, pink, 
Will pass, then turn and turn to 
look, 

Then pass again to think and think, 
Then try to not turn back again, 

But try and try to quite forget 
And, sighing, try and try in vain; 

So you would turn and turn again 
To her, her girlish woman’s grace— 
Full-flowered yet fond baby’s face. 

XI 

Her wide, sweet mouth, an opened 
rose, 

Pushed out, reached out, as if to 
kiss; 

A mobile mouth in proud repose 
This moment, then unlike to this 
As storm to calm, as day to night, 

As sullen darkness to swift light; 
This new-made woman was, the sun 
And surged sea interwound in one. 


XII 

Her proud and ample lips pushed 
out 

As kissing sea-winds unaware; 

And then they arched in angry 
pout, 

As if she cared yet did not care. 
Then lightning lit her great, wide 

eyes, 

As if black thunder walled the skies, 
And all things took some touch of 
her, 

The while she stood nor deigned to 
stir: 

The while she saw with vision 
dim—• 

Saw all things, yet saw only him. 

XIII 

Such eyes as compass all the skies, 
That see all things yet naught have 
seen; 

Such eyes of love or sorrow’s eyes— 
A martyr or a Magdalene? 

How sad that all great souls are sad! 
How sad that gladness is not glad— 
That Love’s sad sister is sweet Pain, 
That only lips of beauty drain 
Life’s full-brimmed, glittering goblet 
dry, 

And only drain the cup to die! 

XIV 

The yellow of her poppy hair 
Was as red gold is, when at rest; 

But when aroused was as the west 
In sunset flame and then—take care! 
Her tall, free-fashioned, supple form 



21 £?ong of Creation 


479 


Was now some sudden, tropic storm 
Was now some lily leaned at play. 
What sea and sun, sunshine and 
shower, 

Full flowered ere the noon of day, 
Full June ere yet the morn of May, 
This sun-born blossom of an hour— 
Precocious Californian flower! 

XV 

She answered not but looked away 
With brown hand arched above her 
brow,— 

As peers a boatman from his prow,—• 
To where white sea-doves wheeled at 
play. 

She watched them long, then turned 
and sighed 

And looking in his face she cried, 
While blushing prettily, “Behold, 
There is no mateless dove, not one! 
And see! not one unhappy dove. 

Ten thousand circling in the sun, 
Entangled as the mesh of fate, 

Yet each remains as true as gold 
And constant courts his pretty mate. 
See here! See there! Behold, 
above— 

I think each dove would die for 
love.” 

He watched the shallows spume the 
shore 

And fleck the shelly, drifting shale, 
Then far at sea his swift eyes swept 
Where one tall, stately, snow-white 
sail 

Its silent course majestic kept 
And gloried in its alien mood, 

As his own soul in solitude. 


XVI 

“The shallows murmur and com¬ 
plain, 

The shallows turn with wind and 
tide, 

They fringe with froth and moil the 
main; 

They wail and will not be denied— 
Poor, puny babes, unsatisfied! 

XVII 

“The lighthouse clings her beetling 
steep 

Above the rock-sown, ragged shore 
Where Scylla and Charybdis roar 
And dangers lurk and shallows keep 
Mad tumult in the house of sleep. 
The shallows moan and moan 
alway— 

The deeps have not one word to 
say. 

XVIII 

“I reckon Silence as a grace 
That was ere light had name or 
place; 

A saint enshrined ere hand was laid 
To fashioning of man or maid. 

For, storm or calm, or sun or shade, 
Fair Silence never truth betrayed ; 
For, ocean deep or dappled sky, 

Saint Silence never told a lie.” 

CANTO II 

I 

From out the surge of Sutro’s steep, 
Beyond the Gate a rock uprears, 




480 


& H>ottg of Creation 


So sudden, savage, unawares 
The very billows start and leap, 

As frightened at its lifted face, 

So shoreless, sealess, out of place: 

A sea-washed, surge-locked isle, as 
lone 

As lorn Napoleon on his throne— 

His Saint Helena throne, where still 
The dazed world in dumb wonder 
turns 

To his high throned, imperious 
will 

And incense burns and ever burns. 
Here huge sea-lions climb and 
cling, 

Despite the surge and seethe and 
shock 

The topmost limit of the rock, 

And one is named Napoleon, king. 
Behold him lord the land, the sea, 

In lone, unquestioned majesty! 

II 

She saw, she raised alert her head 
With eager face and cheery said: 
“What lusty, upheaved, bull-built 
neck! 

What lungs to lift above the roar! 
What captain on his quarter-deck 
To mock the sea and scorn the 
shore! 

I like that scar across his breast, 

I like his ardent, lover’s zest! ” 

III 

The huge sea-beast uprose, uprose, 

As if to surely topple down; 

He reached his black and bearded 
nose 


Above his harem, gray, black, 
brown, 

Sleek, shining, wet or steaming 
dry, 

And mouthed and mouthed against 
the sky. 

IV 

What eloquence, what hot love pain! 
What land but this, what love but 
his? 

What isle of bliss but this and this— 
To roar and love and roar again? 
What land, what love but this his 
own, 

Loud thundered from his slippery 
throne; 

Loud thundered in his Sappho’s ear, 

As if she could not, would not hear. 

V 

At last her heart was moved and 

she 

Raised two bright eyes to his black 
beard, 

Then sudden turned, as if she feared, 
And threw her headlong in the sea, 
Another Sappho, all for love. 

While Phaon towered still aboye— 
An instant only; yet once more 
That upheaved head, that great bull 
neck, 

That sea-born, bossed, bull-throated 
roar— 

A poise, a plunge, a flash, a fleck, 
And far down, cavemed in the deep, 
Where sea-green curtains swing and 
sweep 

And varicolored carpets creep, 





9 Iking of Creation 


Soft emerald or amethyst, 

Two lion lovers kept sweet tryst. 

VI 

She looked, looked long, then smiled, 
then sighed, 

A proud, pure soul unsatisfied, 

Then sat dense grasses suddenly 
And thrust a foot above the sea. 

She threw her backward, arms wide 
out. 

And up the poppy-spangled steep 
O'er grass-set cushions sown in gold, 
As she would sleep yet would not 
sleep. 

She reached her wide hands fast 
about 

And grasses, gold and manifold, 

Of lowly blossoms, pink and blue, 

She gathered in and laughing threw, 
With bare-armed, heedless, happy 
grace— 

Threw fragrant handfuls in his face. 
And then as if to sleep she lay, 

A babe nursed at the breast of 
May— 

Lay back with wide eyes to the 
skies 

And clouds of wondrous butterflies; 
Such Mariposa blooms in air! 

Such bloomy, golden, poppy hair! 
And which were hers or poppy’s 
gold 

Without close care none could have 
told; 

And which were butterflies or bloom, 
To guess there was not guessing 
room, 

The while, in quest of sweets or 
rest, 

31 


481 

They fanned her face, they kissed her 
breast. 

VII 

That face like to a lilt of song— 

A face of sea-shell tint, with tide 
Of springtime flowing fast and strong 
And fearless in its maiden pride— 
Such rich rose ambushed in such 
hair 

Of heedless, wind-kissed, poppy gold 
Blown here, blown there, blown any¬ 
where, 

Soft-lifting, falling fold on fold, 

As made gold poppies where she lay 
Turn envious, turn green as May! 
What wise face yet what wilful face, 
A face that would not be denied 
No more than gipsy winds that race 
The sea bank in their saucy pride; 

A form that knew yet only knew 
The natural, the human, true. 

VIII 

Those two round mounds of Nine¬ 
veh, 

What treasures of the past they 
knew! 

But these two round mounds here 
to-day 

Hold treasures richer far than they, 
And prophecies more truly true. 

Old Nineveh’s twin mounds are 
dust; 

They only know the ghostly past; 

But these two new mounds hold in 
trust 

The awful future, hold the vast 
Unbounded empire, land or sea, 





482 


a g>ottg of Creation 


Henceforth, for all eternity. 

Let pass dead pasts; far wiser 
turn 

And delve the future; love and 
learn. 

IX 

It seems she dreamed. She slept, we 
know, 

A happy, quiet little space, 

Then thrust a round limb far below 
And half-way turned aside her face, 
And then she threw her arms wide 
out 

In sleep, and so reached blind about 
As if for something she might find 
From fortune-telling, gipsy wind. 

X 

The soft, warm winds from far away 
Were weary, and they crept so near 
They lay against her willing ear 
As if they had so much to say. 

And she, she seemed so glad to hear 
The while she loving, sleeping lay 
And dreamed of love nor dreamed of 
doubt, 

But laughing thrust her form far 
out 

And down the fragrant poppy steep 
In playful, restless, happy sleep. 

She sighed, she heaved her hilly 
breast, 

As one who would but could not rest. 

XI 

How natural, how free, how fair, 

The while the happy winds on wing, 


As larger butterflies, laid bare 

A rippled, braided rim of white 

And outstretched ankles exquisite. 

What arms to hold a babe at breast— 

Such breast as prudist never guessed! 

What shapely limbs, what everything 

That makes great woman great and 
good— 

That makes for proud, pure mother¬ 
hood ! 

XII 

Such thews as mount the steeps of 
morn, 

Such limbs as love, not lust shall 
share, 

Such legs as God has shaped to 
bear 

The weight of ages, worlds unborn; 

Such limbs as Lesbian shrines 
revealed 

When comely, longing mothers 
kneeled; 

Such thews as Phidias loved to 
hew, 

Such limbs as Leighton loved to 
draw 

When painting tall, Greek girls at 
play; 

Such legs as blind old Homer saw, 

As Marlowe knew but yesterday, 

When Helen climbed in dreams for 
him 

Her cloud-topped towers of Ilium. 

CANTO III 

I 

White sea-gulls glistened in the 
sun— 



3 ^>ong of Creation 


Ten thousand if a single one— 

And every sea-dove knew his mate. 
Far, far at sea, the Farallones 
Sent up a million plaintive moans 
From sea-beasts moaning love, or 
hate. 

The sun sank weary, flushed and 
worn, 

The warm sea-winds sank tattered, 
torn, 

The sun and sea lay welded, wed; 
The day lay crouched upon the 
deep 

Half closed, as eyes half closed in 
sleep, 

Half closed, as some good book half 
read. 

II 

The sea was as an opal sea 
Inlaid with scintillating light, 

Yet close about and left and right 
The sea lay banked and bossed in 
night, 

As black as ever night may be 

III 

The sundown sea all sudden then 
Lay argent, pallid, white as death. 

As when some great thing dies; as 
when 

A god gasps in one final breath 
And heaves full length his somber 
bed. 

The sundown sea now shone, mobile, 
Translucent, flaming, molten steel, 
Red, green, then tenfold more than 
red, 

And then of every hue, a hint 


483 

Of doubloons spilling from the mint, 
Alternate, changing, manifold, 

Yet melting, minting all to gold. 

IV 

Far mountain peaks flashed flecks of 
gold 

And dashed with dappled flecks the 
skies. 

“Behold,” said he, “the fleecy fold 
Now slowly, surely, homeward hies. 
Such cobalt blue, such sheep of 
gold, 

Such gold as hath not place or 
name 

In elsewhere land, because no seer 
Hath seen or dauntless prophet told 
Where stood the loom in primal 
peace 

That wove the fair, first golden 
fleece. 

Behold, what gold-flecked flocks of 
Light! 

Ten million moving sheep of gold, 
Wee lambs of gold that nudge their 
dams, 

Great horned, wrinkled, heady 
rams! 

V 

“Slow-shepherded, the golden sheep, 
With bent horns lowered to the 
deep, 

Come home; the hollows of the sea 
Receive and house them lovingly. 

The little lambs of Light come 
home 

And house them in the argent foam, 





la g>otts of Creation 


484 

The while He counts them every 
one, 

And shuts the Gate, for day is done. 

VI 

“Aye, day is done, the dying sun 
Sinks wounded unto death to-night; 
A great, hurt swan, he sinks to rest, 
His wings all crimson, blood his 
breast! 

What wide, low wings, reached left 
and right, 

He sings, and night and swan are 
one—■ 

One huge black swan of Helicon. 

VII 

“What crimson breast, what crimson 
wings 

The while he dies, and dying sings! 
Yet safe is housed the happy fold, 
The golden sheep, the fleece of gold 
That lured the dauntless Argonaut— 
The fleece that daring Jason 
sought.” 

VIII 

She waking sighed, soft murmuring, 
As waters from some wood-walled 
spring: 

“ Oh happy, huge, horn-headed rams, 
To guide and lead the golden fleece, 
To ward the fold of fat increase 
Fast mated to your golden dams! 
What bridal gold, what golden bride, 
What golden twin lambs, side by 
side! 


Oh happy, happy nudging lambs, 
Thrice happy, happy golden dams! ” 

IX 

His face Was still against the west; 
For still a flush of gold was there 
That would not or that could not 
rest, 

But seemed some night bird of the 
air. 

At last, with half-averted head 
And dreamfully, as dreaming, said: 
“What banker gathers yonder gold 
That sinks, sea-washed, beyond the 
deeps? 

Lie there no sands to house and 
hold 

This sunset gold in countless heaps? 
There sure must be some far, fierce 
land, 

Some Guinea shore, some fire-fed 
strand, 

Some glowing, palm-set, pathless 
spot 

Where all this sunset gold is stored, 
As misers gather hoard on hoard. 
There sure must be, beyond this 
sea, 

Some Argo’s gold, some argosy, 

Some golden fleece, long since for¬ 
got, 

To wait the coming Argonaut.” 

X 

She sprang up sudden, savagely, 

And flushed, and paled, looked far 

away. 

Grinding gold poppies with her heel. 



® iking of Creation 


She could not say, she could but 
feel. 

She nothing said, because that they 
Who really feel can rarely say. 

And then she looked up, forth and 
far, 

And pointed to the pale North 
Star, 

The while her color went and came 
From pink to white, from frost to 
flame. 

XI 

For this, the one forbidden theme, 
The one hard, dread, unquiet dream 
That he should go, lead forth and 
far 

Below the triple Arctic star, 

As he had planned; and now to 
speak, 

To hint—she heard with pallid 
cheek, 

Hard had she tried, had fain forgot 
How strong, strange men were trend¬ 
ing far 

Against this cold, elusive star, 

And he their Jason—Argonaut! 

CANTO IV 

I 

How passing fair, how wondrous fair, 
This daughter of the yellow sun! 

Her sunlit length and strength of 
hair 

Seemed sun and gold inwound in 
one. 

How strangely silent, unaware, 
Unconscious quite of strength or 
grace 


4 8 5 

Or peril of her beauteous face, 

She stood, the first-born of a race, 

A proud, new race, scarce yet begun. 
How tall she stood, free debonair— 
How stately and how supple, tall, 
The time she loosened and let fall 
Her tossed and mighty Titian hair! 

II 

So beautiful she was, as one 
From out some priceless picture- 
book! 

You could but love, you had no 
choice 

But love and turn again to look. 

How young she was and yet how 
old!— 

Red orange ripened in the sun 
Where never hand had reached as 
yet. 

The calm strength of her lifted face, 
The low notes of her tuneful voice, 
Were mint-marks of that wondrous 
race 

But scarcely born nor known as yet 
Beyond yon yellow hills that fret 
Warm sea-winds with their waving 
pine. 

A princess of that royal line 
Of kings who came and silent passed, 
Yet, passing, set bold, royal hand 
And mighty mint-marks on the land, 
And set it there to last and last, 

As if in bronzen copper cast. 

III 

He, too, was born of men who wooed 
The savage walks of solitude, 



of Creation 


& £>ong 


486 

And hewed close, clean to nature’s 
laws— 

Of men who knew not tears or fears, 

Of men full-sexed, yet men who 
knew 

Not sex till perfect manhood was. 
When men had thews of antique 
men, 

And one stood with the strength of 
ten; 

When men gat men who dared to 
do; 

Gat men of heart who dwelt apart, 
As Adam dwelt, when giants grew 
And men as gods drew ample 
breath— 

As Adams with their thousand 

years, 

Ere drunkenness of sex had done 
The silly world to willing death. 

IV 

What royal parentage, what true 
Nobility, those men who knew 
The light, who chased the yellow 
sun 

From sea to sea triumphantly, 

And westward fought and westward 
won, 

As never daring man had done. 

V 

They housed with God upon the 
height; 

Companioned with the peak, the 
pine; 

They led the red-lit firing line. 

Walled ’round by room and room and 
room, 


They read God’s open book at night, 
And drank His star-distilled per¬ 
fume; 

By day they dared the trackless 
west 

And chased the battling sun to rest. 

VI 

Such sad, mad marches to the sea, 
Such silent sacrifice, such trust! 

Such months of marching, misery, 
Such mountains heaped with heroes’ 
dust! 

Yet what stout thews the fearless 
few 

Who won the sea at last, who knew 
The cleansing fire and laid hold 
To hammer out their house of gold! 

VII 

Their cities zone their sea of seas, 
Their white tents top the mountain’s 
crest. 

The coward? He trenched not with 
these. 

The weakling? He was laid to rest. 
Each man stood forth a man, such 
men 

As God wrought not since time 
began, 

Each man a hero, lion each. 

Behold what length of limb, what 
length 

Of life, of love, what daring reach 
To deep-hived honeycomb! What 
strength! 

How clean his hands, how stout his 
heart 



ill S>ong of Creation 


To dare, to do, camp, court or 
mart. 

He stands so tall, so clean, he hears 
The morning music of the spheres. 

VIII 

He loved her, feared her, far apart, 
He kept his ways and dreamed his 
dreams; 

He sang strange songs, he tuned his 
heart 

To music of the pines that preach 
Such sermons on such holy themes 
As only he who climbs can reach. 

IX 

He would not selfish pluck one 
rose 

To wear upon his breast a day 
And let its perfume pass away 
With any wind that comes or goes. 
Why, he might walk God’s garden 
through 

Nor touch one bud nor fright one 
bird. 

The music of the spheres he heard, 
The harmony he breathed, he knew. 
He never marred God’s harmony 
With one harsh thought. The fav¬ 
ored few 

Who cared to live above the sod 
And lift glad faces up to God 
He knew loved all as well as he, 

Had equal right to rose or tree. 

X 

And he must spare all to the day 
Their willing feet should pass the way 


487 

God in His garden walked at eve. 
And as for weaklings who by turn 
Would jest or jeer, he could but 
grieve, 

And pity all and silent say: 

“Let us lead forth, make fair the 
way; 

By time and stress they, too, will 
learn 

Which way to live, to love, to 
turn.” 

XI 

The long, lean Polar bear uprose, 
Outreached a paw, a bare, black 
nose, 

As if to still hold hard control, 

By glacier steep or ice-packed main, 
His mighty battlemented snows. 

He bared his yellow teeth in vain; 
Then backed against his bleak North 
Pole 

He sulked and shook his icy chain. 
And he who dared not pluck a rose, 
As if in chorus with his pine, 

Must up and lead the battle line 
Beyond the awesome Arctic chine. 

XII 

No airy sighs, no tales to tell; 

He knew God is, that all is well, 
That death is but a name, a date, 

A milestone by the stormy road, 
Where you may lay aside your 
load 

And bow your face and rest and 
wait, 

Defying fear, defying fate. 




488 


& S>ong of Creation 


XIII 

How fair is San Francisco Bay 
When golden stars consort and 
when 

The moon pours silver paths for 
men, 

And care walks by the other way! 
Huge ships, black-bellied, lay below 
Broad, yellow flags from silken 
Chind, 

Round, blood-red banners from Nip¬ 
pon, 

Like to her sun at sudden dawn— 
Brave battle-ships as white as 
snow, 

With bannered stars tossed to the 
wind, 

Warm as a kiss when love is kind. 

XIV 

’Twas twilight, such soft, twilight 
night 

As only Californians know, 

When faithful love is forth, and 
when 

The Bay lies bathed in mellow 
light; 

And perfumed breath and softened 
breeze 

Blows far from Honolulu’s seas— 
From sundown seas in afterglow— 
When Song sits at the feet of men 
And pipes, low-voiced as mated 
dove, 

For love to measure step with love. 

XV 

And yet, for all the perfumed seas, 
The peace, the silent harmonies, 


The two stood mute, estranged 
before 

Her high-built, stately, opened door 
High up the terraced, plunging hill 
As hushed as death, as white and 
still. 

XVI 

The moon, amid her yellow fleet, 
With full, white sail, moved on and 
on, 

And drew, as loving hearts are 
drawn, 

All seas of earth fast following, 

As slow she sailed her sapphire seas. 
Then, as if pausing, pitying, 

She poured down at their very 
feet 

Broad silver ways to walk upon 
Which way they would, or east or 

west, 

Which way they would, or worst or 
best. 

XVII 

Her voice was low, low leaned her 
head, 

Her two white hands all helpless 
prest 

As if to hush her aching breast, 

As if to bid her aching heart 
To silent bear its bitter part, 

The while she choking, sobbing said: 
“ Then here, for all our poppy days, 
Here, here, the parting of the ways? ” 

XVIII 

“Aye, so you will it. Here divide 
The ways, forever and a day. 



9 i?ong of Creation 


489 


You, you—you women lead the way— 
You lead where love hangs crucified, 
Where love is laid prone in the 
dust— 

Where cunning, cold men mouth 
sweet lies 

And make pure love their mer¬ 
chandise. 

You heedless lead to hollow lands 
Of bloodless hearts and nerveless 
hands; 

I will not rival such, nay, nay 
Not look on such, save with disgust. ’ ’ 

XIX 

Her head sank lower still: her hair, 
Her heavy hair, great skeins of gold, 
Hung loosened, heedless, fold on fold, 
As if she cared not, could not care; 
She tried to speak but nothing said; 
She could but press her aching 
heart, 

Step back a pace and shudder, 
start, 

The while she slowly moved her 
head, 

As if to say; but nothing said. 

XX 

Her silence lit his soul with rage, 

He strode before her, forth and back, 

A lion strident in his cage, 

Hard bound within his iron track. 

And then he paused, shook back his 
head, 

And fronting her half savage said: 
“My father, yours, each Argonaut 
An Alexander, to this sea 
Came forth and conquered mightily. 


XXI 

“God, what great loves, what lovers 
when 

These westmost states were bom of 
men, 

When giants gripped their hands and 
came 

With nerves of steel and souls of 
flame— 

Could you not wait within yon Gate, 
As their loves dared to wait and 
wait? 

An hundred thousand Didos sat 
Atlantic’s sea-bank nor forgot, 

The while their lovers westmost 
fought, 

But patient sat as Dido, when 
She waved ASneas back again 
And bravely dared to smile thereat. 

XXII 

“Hear me! All Europe, rind to core, 
Is rotting, tumbling, base to top. 
Withhold the gold and silver prop 
Our dauntless fathers hewed of yore 
From yonder seamed Sierras’ core, 
And such a toppling you may hear 
As never fell on mortal ear. 

XXIII 

“What’s London town but sorrow’s 
town 

And sins, such as I dare not name? 
Such thousands creeping up and 
down 

Its dreary streets in draggled shame! 
What’s London but a market pen— 



49 » 


S3 g?ong of Creation 


Its hundred thousand lewd, rude 
men? 

What’s London but a town of stone, 
Its thousand thousand women prone? 

XXIV 

“What’s Paris but a painted screen, 
A gaudy gauze that scant conceals 
The sensuous nakedness between 
The folds it but the more reveals? 
What’s Paris but a circus, fair, 

To tempt this west world’s open 
purse 

With tawdry trinkets, toys bizarre? 
Ah, would that she were nothing 
worse! 

What’s Paris but a piteous mart 
For west-world mothers crazed to 
trade 

Some silly, simpering, weak maid 
For thread-bare, out-at-elbows 
rank— 

To outworn, weak degenerate 
Whose bank is but the faro bank, 
Whose grave bounds all his real 
estate; 

Whose boast, whose only stock in 
trade, 

A duel and a ruined maid! 

XXV 

“What’s Berlin, Dresden, sorry 
Rome, 

But traps that take you unaware? 
Behold yon paintings, right at 
home, 

Where nature paints with patient 
care 


Such splendid pictures, sea and 
shore, 

As all the world should bow before; 
Such pictures hanging to the skies 
Against the walls of Paradise, 

From base to bastion, as should 
wake 

Piave’s painter from the dust; 

Such walls of color crowned in 
snow, 

Such steeps, such deeps, profoundly 
vast, 

As old-time Art had died to know, 
And knowing, died content, as he 
Who looked from Nimo’s steep to 
see, 

Just once, the Promised Land, and 
passed! 

And yet, for all yon scene, this 

sea, 

You will not bide, Penelope? 

XXVI 

“Then go, since you so will it, go! 
My way lies yonder, forth and far 
Beneath yon gleaming northmost 
star 

O’er silent lands of trackless snow. 
Lo, there leads duty, hope, as when 
This westmost world demanded men: 
Such men as led the firing line 
When blood ran free as festal wine; 
Such men as when, fast side by side, 
Our fathers fought and fighting 
died. 

XXVII 

“But go—good by! Go see again 
The noisy circus, since you must; 



3 gbottg; of Creation 


491 


Its painted women that disgust, 

Its nauseating monkey men; 

But mark you, Beautiful, the moth 
That loves that luring, sensuous 
light— 

Nay, hear! I am not wilful, wroth; 

I love with such exceeding might, 

My beautiful, my all, my life, 

I would not, could not take to wife 
My lily tainted by the touch, 

The breath, the very sight of such. 

XXVIII 

“Shall I see leprous apes lean o’er 
My rose, breathe, touch it if they 
may, 

With breath that is a very stench, 
The while they bow and bend before 
Familiar, as with some weak wench, 
And smirk in double-meaning 
French? 

XXIX 

“You shrink back angered? Well, 
adieu; 

What, not a hand? What, not a 
touch? . . . 

My crime is that I love too much, 
My crime is that I love too true, 
Love you, love you, not part of 
you— 

Yea, how much less the rose that 
droops 

In fevered halls where folly stoops! 
XXX 

“Yon splendid, triple, midnight star 
Is mine; I follow fast and sure, 


Because it guides so far, so far 
From fevered follies that allure 
Your soul, your splendid, spotless 
soul 

To wreck where siren billows roll— 
Good night! What, turn aside your 
face 

That I might never see again 
Its lifted glory and proud grace, 

As some brave beacon light! Well, 
then. . . . 

Ha, ha! Let’s laugh lest one may 
weep— 

How steep your hill seems, steeps how 
steep! 

How deep down seems the misty 
town, 

How lone, how dark, how distant 
down! 

The moon, too, turns her face, her 
light, 

As you have turned your face to¬ 
night, 

As you have turned your face from 
me, 

My heartless, lost Penelope.” 

XXXI 

Then sudden up she tossed her 
head, 

And, face to his face, proudly 
said: 

“Penelope! To wait and weave! 
Penelope! To wait and wait, 

As waits a dog within his gate; 

To weave and unweave, grieve and 
grieve, 

As some weak harem favorite 
Tight fenced from action, life, and 
light! 




492 


& H>ong of Creation 


\ 


XXXII 

“Why, I should not have sat one 
day 

To that dull-threaded, thudding 
loom, 

With cowards crowding fast for 
room 

To say what brave men dare not 
say! 

Why, I had snatched down from the 
wall 

His second sword that sad, first day 

And set its edge to end it all!— 

Had hewn that loom to splinters, 
yea, 

Had slashed the warp, enmeshed the 
woof 

And called that dog and put to 
proof 

Each silly suitor hounding me, 

Then hoisted sail and bent to sea! 

XXXIII 

“Penelope! Penelope! 

Of all fool tales in history 

I think this tale the foolishest! 

Why I, the favored of that land, 

Had such fools come to seek my 
hand, 

Had ranged in line the sexless list 

And frankly answered with my fist! ” 

XXXIV 

He passed. She paused. Each help¬ 
less hand 

Fell down, fell heavy down as lead; 

She tried but could not understand. 

At last she raised once more her head, 


Set firm her lips, stepped back a pace, 
Looked long his far star in the face, 
Stood stately, still, as fixed as fate, 
Till all the east flushed sudden red; 
Then as she turned within she said: 
“I cannot, will not, will not wait.” 

• ••••• • 

He passed, with set lips, lifted hand, 
He passed the northmost golden zone 
Of dreamful, yellow poppy land, 

And silent passed, and so alone! 

Beyond the utmost Oregon, 

Far, far beyond and still beyond, 
Where the crisp, clean waters rattle 
O’er the sparkling, shining shale, 
Where the dusky king, Seattle, 
Lorded mountain, wold and vale, 
When he drave his galleon 
Where scarce a battle-ship would 
dare, 

Far out, far out, or dusk or dawn, 

An hundred leagues of sea to fare 
All up or down or anywhere— 

Whose dusky, tall, breeched oarsmen 
ate 

Red salmon of an hundred weight. 

His huge white cedar ships were 
wrought 

By flint and flame and ballasted 
With slabs of virgin copper brought 
From hidden mountain mines and 
red 

With dash and dot of native gold— 
Their coin, their currency of old. 

Here white Tacoma smiles upon 
Wild, wood-born blackness every¬ 
where ! 

Here hairy monsters prowl and howl 




3 £?cmg of Creation 


493 


Their whole night long and nothing 
care, 

White-fanged or mated cheek by- 
jowl. 

Here nature is, here man may trace 
First footprints of his brutal race. 

On, on, what wood-hung waters these; 
What baby cities crowd the seas! 
What British ships incessantly 
Cross swords with stately shadow 
trees! 

What white-maned stallions plunge 
and play 

And charge and challenge day by 
day 

These baby cities of the wold 
That sit their shifting sands of 
gold! 

What black firs climb the cloud- 
capped steep 

And bid the bold invaders halt! 

What robust Britons mount and keep 
Their topless walls of Esquimalt! 

On, on, what inland seas of wonder, 
So icy cold, so spicy keen, 

So deep as fate, so clear, so clean! 
You taste a tingling, spicy breath 
What time the avalanche's thunder 
Grinds balm and balsam woods to 
death 

And in these wood-walled seas of 
wonder 

Swift drowns his dread, earth-shak¬ 
ing thunder; 

While here and there beneath the 
trees 

White ice tents dash and dot the 
seas. 


BOOK SECOND 

CANTO I 

I 

His triple star led on and on, 

Led up blue, bastioned Chilkoot Pass 
To clouds, through clouds, above 
white clouds 

That droop with snows like beaded 
strouds— 

Above a world of gleaming glass, 
Where loomed such cities of the skies 
As only prophets look upon, 

As only loving poets see, 

With prophet ken of mystery. 

II 

What lone, white silence, left or 
right, 

What whiteness,something more than 
white! 

Such steel blue whiteness, van or 
rear— 

Such silence as you could but hear 
Above the sparkled, frosted rime, 

As if the steely stars kept time 
And sang their mystic, mighty 
rune— 

. . . And oh, the icy, eerie moon! 

III 

What temples, towers, tombs of 
white, 

White tombs, white tombstones, left 
and right, 

That pushed the passing night 
aside 




494 


$3 g>ong of Creation 


Toward where fallen stars had died— 
Toward white tombs where dead stars 
lay— 

White tombs more white, more bright 
than they; 

White tombs high heaped white 
tombs upon— 

White Ossa piled on Pelion! 

IV 

Pale, steel stars flashed, rose, fell 
again, 

Then paused, leaned low, as pitying, 
And leaning so they ceased to sing, 
The while the moon, with mother 
care, 

Slow rocked her silver rocking-chair. 

V 

Night here, mid-year, is as a span; 
Thor comes, a gold-clad king of war, 
Comes only as the great Thor can. 
Thor storms the battlements and 
Thor, 

Far leaping, clinging crowned upon, 
Throws battle hammer forth and 
back 

Until the walls blaze in his track 
With sparks and it is sudden dawn— 
Dawn, sudden, sparkling, as a gem— 
A jeweled, frost-set diadem 
Of diamond, ruby, radium. 

VI 

Two tallest, ice-tipt peaks take 
flame, 

Take yellow flame, take crimson, 
pink, 


Then, ere you yet have time to 
think, 

Take hues that never yet had name. 
Then turret, minaret, and tower, 

As if to mark some mystic hour, 

Or ancient, lost Masonic sign, 

Take on a darkness like to night, 
Deep night below the yellow light 
That erstwhile seemed some snow- 
white tomb. 

Then all is set in ghostly gloom, 

As some dim-lighted, storied shrine— 
As if the stars forget to stay 
At court when comes the kingly day. 

VII 

And now the high-built shafts of 
brass, 

Gate posts that guard the tomb-set 
pass, 

Put off their crowns, rich robes, and 
all 

Their sudden, splendid light let fall; 
And tomb and minaret and tower 
Again gleam as that midnight hour. 
While day, as scorning still to wait, 
Drives fiercely through the ice-built 
• gate 

That guards the Arctic’s outer hem 
Of white, high-built Jerusalem. 

VIII 

To see, to guess the great -white 
throne, 

Behold Alaska’s ice-built steeps 
Where everlasting silence keeps 
And white death lives and lords 
alone: 

Go see God’s river bom full grown— 



3 is>ong of Creation 


The gold of this stream it is good: 
Here grows the Ark’s white gopher 
wood— 

A wide, white land, unnamed, un¬ 
known, 

A land of mystery and moan. 

IX 

Tall, trim, slim gopher trees incline, 
A leaning, laden, helpless copse, 

And moan and creak and intertwine 
Their laden, twisted, tossing tops, 
And moan all night and moan all day 
With winds that walk these steeps 
alway. 

X 

The melancholy moose looks down, 

A tattered Capuchin in brown, 

A gaunt, ungainly, mateless monk, 
An elephant without his trunk, 

While far, against the gleaming blue, 
High up a rock-topt ridge of snow, 
Where scarce a dream would care to 
go, 

Climb countless blue-clad caribou, 

In endless line till lost to view. 

XI 

The rent ice surges, grinds and groans, 
Then gorges, backs, and climbs the 
shore, 

Then breaks with sudden rage and 
roar 

And plunging, leaping, foams and 
moans 

Swift down the surging, seething 
stream— 


495 

Mad hurdles of some monstrous 
dream. 

XII 

To see God’s river born full grown, 
To see him burst the womb of earth 
And leap, a giant at his birth, 
Through shoreless whitenesswithwild 
shout— 

A shout so sharp, so cold, so dread 
You see, feel, hear, his sheeted dead— 
'Tis as to know, no longer doubt, 

’Tis as to know the eld Unknown, 
Aye, bow before the great white 
throne. 

XIII 

White-hooded nuns, steeps gleaming 
white, 

Lean o’er his cradle, left and right, 
And weep the while he moans and 
cries 

And rends the earth with agonies; 
High ice-heaved summits where no 
thing 

Has yet set foot or flashed a wing— 
Bare ice-built summits where the 
white 

Wide world is but a sea of white—■ 
White kneeling nuns that kneel and 
feed 

The groaning ice god in his greed, 
And feed, forever feed, man’s soul. 
The full-grown river bounds right 
on 

From out his birthplace tow’rd the 
Pole; 

He knows no limit, no control: 




496 


01 £i>ong of Creation 


He scarce is here till he is gone— 
This sudden, mad, ice-bom Yukon. 

XIV 

Beyond white plunging Chilkoot 
Pass, 

That trackless Pass of stately tombs, 
Of midday glories, midnight glooms, 
Of morn’s great gate posts, girt in 
brass— 

This courtier, bom to nature’s court, 
This comrade, peer of peaks, still 
kept 

Companion with the stars and leapt 
And laughed, the gliding sea of glass 
Beneath his feet in merry sport. 

XV 

Then mute red men, the quick canoe, 
Then o’er the ice-born surge and 
on, 

Till gleaming snows and steeps were 
gone, 

Till wide, deep waters, swirling, 
blue, 

Received the sudden, swift canoe, 
That leapt and laughed and laughing 
flew. 

XVI 

Then tall, lean trees, girth scarce a 
span, 

With moss-set, moss-hung banks of 
gold 

Most rich in hue, more gorgeous 
than 

Silk carpetings of Turkestan: 

Deep yellow mosses, rich as gold, 


More gorgeous than the eye of man 
Hath seen save in this wonderland— 
Then flashing, tumbling, headlong 

waves 

Below white, ice-bound, ice-built 
shores— 

The river swept a stream of white 
Where basalt bluffs made day like 
night. 

And then they heard no sound, the 
oars 

Were idle, still as grassy graves. 

XVII 

And then the mad, tumultuous moon 
Spilt silver seas to plunge upon, 
Possessed the land, a sea of white. 
That white moon rivaled the red 
dawn 

And slew the very name of night, 
And walked the grave of after¬ 
noon— 

That vast, vehement, stark mad 
moon! 

XVIII 

The wide, still waters, sedgy shore, 

A lank, brown wolf, a hungry howl, 

A lean and hungry midday moon; 
And then again the red man’s oar— 
A wide-winged, mute, white Arctic 
owl, 

A black, red-crested, screeching loon 
That knew not night from middle 
noon, 

Nor gold-robed sun from lean, lank 
moon— 

That crazy, black, red-crested loon. 




8 £S>ong of Creation 


497 


XIX 

Swift narrows now, and now and 
then 

A broken boat with drowning men; 
The wide, still marshes, dank as 
death, 

Where honked the wild goose long 
and loud 

With unabated, angry breath. 

Black swallows twittered in a cloud 
Above the broad mosquito marsh, 
The wild goose honked, forlorn and 
harsh; 

Honked, fluttered, flew in warlike 
mood 

Above her startled, myriad brood, 
The while the melancholy moose, 

As if to mock the honking goose, 
Forsook his wall, plunged in the 
wave 

And sank, as sinking in a grave, 

Sank to his eyes, his great, sad eyes, 
And watched, in wonder, mute 
surprise, 

Watched broken barge and drowning 
men 

Drift, swirl, then plunge the gorge 
again. 

XX 

Again that great white Arctic owl, 

As pitying, it perched the bank 
Where swirled a barge and swirling 
sank— 

A drowned man swirling with white 
face 

Low lifting from the swift whirlpool. 
That distant, doleful, hilltop howl— 
That screaming, crimson-crested fool! 


And oh, that eerie, ice-made moon 
That hung the cobalt tent of blue 
And looked straight down, to look 
you through, 

That dead man swirling in his place, 
That honking, honking, huge gray 
goose, 

That solitary, sad-eyed moose, 

That owl, that wolf, that human 
loon, 

And oh, that death’s head, hideous 
moon! 

XXI 

And this the Yukon, night by night, 
The yellow Yukon, day by day; 

A land of death, vast, voiceless, 
white, 

A graveyard locked in ice-set clay, 

A graveyard to the Judgment Day. 

XXII 

On, on. the swirling pool was gone, 
On, on, the boat swept on, swept on, 
That moon was as a thousand moons! 
Two dead men swirled, one swept, 
one sank— 

Two wolves, two owls, two yelling 
loons! 

And now three loons! How many 
moons? 

How many white owls perch the 
shore? 

Three lank, black wolves along the 
bank 

That watch the drowned men swirl or 
sink! 

Three screeching loons along the 
brink—• 




49 « 


!3 g>ong of Creation 


That moon disputing with the dawm 

That dared the yellow, dread 
Y ukon! 

XXIII 

And why so like some lorn graveyard 

Where only owls and loons may say 

And life goes by the other way? 

Aye, why so hideous and so hard, 

So deathly hard to look upon? 

Because this cold, wild, dread Yukon, 

Of gold-sown banks, of sea white 
waves, 

Is but one land, one sea of graves. 

XXIV 

Behold where bones hang either 
bank! 

Great tusks of beasts before the 
flood 

That floated here and floating sank— 

'Mid ice-locked walls and ice-hung 
steep, 

With muck and stone and moss and 
mud, 

Where only death and darkness 
keep! 

Lo, this is death-land! Heap on 
heap, 

By ice-strown strand or rock-built 
steep, 

By moss-brown walls, gray, green or 
blue, 

The Yukon cleaves a graveyard 
through! 

Three thousand miles of tusk and 
bone, 

Strown here, strown there, all heed¬ 
less strown, 


All strown and sown just as they lay 
That time the fearful deluge passed, 
Safe locked in ices to the last, 

Safe locked, as records laid away, 

To wait, to wait, the Judgment Day. 

XXV 

He landed, pierced the ice-locked 
earth, 

He burned it to the very bone— 
Burned and laid bare the deep bed¬ 
stone 

Placed at the building, at the birth 
Of morn, and here, there, everywhere, 
Such bones of bison, mastodon! 

Such tusky monsters without name! 
Great ice-bound bones with flesh 
scarce gone, 

So fresh the wild dogs nightly came 
To fight about and feast upon. 

And gold along the bedrock lay 
So bounteous below the bones 
Men barely need to turn the stones 
To fill their skins, within the day, 
With rich, red gold and go their way. 

XXVI 

“The gold of that place it is good.” 
Lo, here God laid the Paradise! 

Lo. here each witness of the flood, 
Tight jailed in ice eternal, lies 
To wait the bailiff’s chorus call: 
‘‘Come into court, come one, come 
all!” 

But why so cold, so deathly cold 
The battered beasts, the scattered 
gold, 

The pleasant trees of Paradise, 

Deep locked in everlasting ice? 




& iking of Creation 499 


XXVII 

Oyez! the red man’s simple tale; 

He says that once, o’er hill and vale 
Ripe fruits hung ready all the year; 
That man knew neither frost nor 
fear, 

That bison wallowed to the eyes 
In grass, that palm trees brushed the 
skies 

Where birds made music all day long. 
That then a great chief shaped a 
spear 

Bone-tipt and sharp and long and 
strong, 

And made a deadly moon-shaped 
bow, 

And then a flint-tipt arrow wrought. 
Then cunning, snake-like, creeping 
low, 

As creeps a cruel cat, he sought 
And in sheer wantonness he shot 
A large-eyed, trusting, silly roe. 

And then, exultant, crazed, he slew 
Ten bison, ten tame bear and, too, 

A harmless, long-limbed, shambling 
moose; 

That then the smell of blood let loose 
The passions of all men and all 
Uprose and slew, or great or small— 
Uprose and slew till hot midday 
All four-foot creatures in their way; 
Then proud, defiant, every one, 
Shook his red spear-point at the sun. 

XXVIII 

Then God said, through a mist of 
tears, 

“What would ye, braves made mad 
with blood?” 


And then they shook their bone-tipt 
spears 

And cried, “The sun it is not good! 
Too hot the sun, too long the 
day; 

Break off and throw the end away! ” 
XXIX 

Then God, most angered instantly, 
Drew down the day from out the sky 
And brake the day across his knee 
And hurled the fragments hot and 
high 

And far down till they fell upon 
The bronzing waves of dread Yukon, 
Nor spared the red men one dim ray 
Of light to lead them on their way. 

XXX 

And then the red men filled the lands 
With wailing for just one faint ray 
Of light to guide them home that 
they 

Might wash and cleanse their blood- 
red hands. 

XXXI 

But God said, “Yonder, far away 
Down yon Yukon, your broken day! 
Go gather it from out the night! 
That fitful, fearful Northern Light, 
Is all that ye shall ever know 
To guide henceforth the way you go. 

XXXII 

“You shall not see my face again, 
But you shall see cold death instead. 




a g>ong of Creation 


500 

This land hath sinned, this land is 
dead; 

You drenched your beauteous land in 
blood, 

And now behold the wild, white rain 
Shall fall until a drowning flood 
Shall fill all things above, below, 

To wash away the smell of blood, 
And birds shall die and beasts be 
dumb, 

When cold, the cold of death shall 
come 

And weave a piteous shroud of snow, 
In graveyard silence, ever so.” 

XXXIII 

The red men say that then the rain 
Drowned all the fires of the world, 
Then drowned the fires of the moon; 
That then the sun came not again, 
Save in the middle summer noon, 
When hot, red lances they had hurled 
Are hurled at them like fiery rain, 
Till Yukon rages like a main. 

XXXIV 

With bated breath these skin-clad 
men 

Tell why the big-nosed moose fore¬ 
knew 

The flood; how, bandy-legged, he 
flew 

Far up high Saint Elias: how 
Down in the slope of his left horn, 
The raven rested, night and morn; 
How, in the hollow of his right, 

The dove-hued moose-bird nestled 
low 


Until they touched the utmost 
height; 

How dove and raven soon took 
flight 

And winged them forth and far 
away; 

But how the moose did stay and stay, 
His great sad eyes all wet with tears, 
And keep his steeps two thousand 
years. 

XXXV 

He heard the half nude red men say, 
Close huddled to the flame at night, 
How in the hollow of a palm 
A woman and a water rat, 

That dreadful, darkened, drowning 
day, 

Crept close and nestled in their 
fright; 

And how a bear, tame as a lamb, 
Came to them in the tree and sat 
The long, long drift-time to the sea, 
The while the wooing water rat 
Made love to her incessantly; 

How then the bear became a priest 
And married them at last; how then 
To them was bom the shortest, 
least 

Of all the children of all men, 

And yet most cunning and most 
brave 

Of all who dare the bleak north 
wave. 

XXXVI 

What tales of tropic fruit! No tale 
But of some soft, sweet sensuous 
clime, 



& sl>ong of Creation 


501 


Of love and lovely maiden’s trust— 
Some peopled, pleasant, palm-hung 
vale 

Of everlasting summer time— 

And, then the deadly sin of lust; 
Forbidden fruit, shame and disgust! 

XXXVII 

And whence the story of it all, 

The palm land, love land and the 
fall? 

Was’t born of ages of desire 
From such sad children of the snows 
For something fairer, better, higher? 
God knows, God knows, God only 
knows. 

But I should say, hand laid to heart 
And head made bare, as I would 
swear, 

These piteous, sad-faced children 
there 

Knew Eden, the expulsion, knew 
The deluge, knew the deluge true! 

XXXVIII 

And what though this be surely so? 
Just this: I know, as all men know, 
As few before this surely knew— 
Just this, and count it great or 
small, 

The best of you or worst of you, 

The Bible, lid to lid, is true! 

CANTO II 

I 

The year waxed weary, gouty, old; 
The crisp days dwindled to a span, 


The dying year it fell as cold 
As dead feet of a dying man. 

The hard, long, weary work was 
done, 

The dark, deep pits probed to the 
bone, 

And each had just one tale to tell. 
Ten thousand argonauts as one, 
Agnostic, Christian, infidel, 

All said, despite of creed or class. 

All said as one, ‘‘As surely as 
The Bible is, the deluge was, 
Whate’er the curse, whate’er the 
cause!” 

II 

What merry men these miners were, 
And mighty in their pent-up force! 
They wrought for her, they fought 
for her, 

For her alone, or night or day, 

In tent or camp, their one discourse 
The Love three thousand miles away, 
The Love who waked to watch and 
pray. 

III 

Yet rude were they and brutal they, 
Their love a blended love and lust, 
Bom of this later, loveless day; 

You could but love them for their 
truth, 

Their frankness and their fiery youth, 
And yet turn from them in disgust, 
To loathe, to pity, and mistrust. 

IV 

The Siege of Troy knew scarce such 
men, 



502 


a il>ong of Creation 


Such hardy, daring men as they, 

The coward had not voyaged then, 
The weak had died upon the way. 

V 

They sang, they sang some like to 
this, 

“ I say risk all for one warm kiss; 

I say ’twere better risk, the fall, 

Like Romeo, to venture all 
And boldly climb to deadly bliss." 

VI 

I like that savage, Sabine way; 

What mighty minstrels came of it! 
Their songs are ringing to this day, 
The bravest ever sung or writ; 

Their loves the love of Juliet, 

Of Portia, Desdemona, yea, 

The old true loves are living yet; 
And we, we love, we weep, we sigh, 
In love with loves that will not die. 

VII 

Then take her, lover, sword in hand, 
Hot-blooded and red-handed, clasp 
Her sudden, stormy, tall and grand, 
And lift her in your iron grasp 
And kiss her, kiss her till she cries 
From keen, sweet, happy, killing 
pain. 

Aye, kiss her till she seeming dies; 
Aye, kiss her till she dies, and then, 
Why kiss her back to life again! 

VIII 

1 love all things that truly love, 

I love the low-voiced cooing dove 


In wooing time, he woos so true, 

His soft notes fall so overfull 
Of love they thrill me through and 
through. 

But when the thunder-throated bull 
Upheaves his head and shakes the 
air 

With eloquence and battle’s blare, 
And roars and tears the earth to 
woo, 

I like his warlike wooing too. 

IX 

Yet best to love that lover is 
Who loves all things beneath the 
sun, 

Then finds all fair things in just one, 
And finds all fortune in one kiss. 

X 

How wisely born, how more than 
wise, 

How wisely learned must be that soul 
Who loves all earth, all Paradise, 

All people, places, pole to pole, 

Yet in one kiss includes the whole! 

XI 

Give me a lover ever bold, 

A lover clean, keen, sword in hand, 
Like to those white-plumed knights of 
old 

Whose loves held honor in the land; 
Those men with hot blood in their 
veins 

And hot, swift, iron hand to kill— 
Those women loving well the chains 



9 £?ong of Creation 


503 


That bound them fast against their 
will; 

Yet loved and lived—are living still. 

XII 

Enough: the bronzed man launched 
his boat, 

A faithful dwarf clutched at the oar, 
And Boreas began to roar 
As if to break his burly throat. 

XIII 

Down, down by basalt palisade, 
Down, down by bleakest ice-piled 
isle! 

The mute, dwarf water rat afraid ? 
The water rat it could but smile 
To hear the cold, wild waters roar 
Against his savage Arctic shore. 

XIV 

But now he listened, gave a shout, 

A startled cry, akin to fear. 

The hand of God had reached swift 
out 

And locked, as in an iron vise, 

The whole white world in blue-black 
ice, 

And daylight scarce seemed living 
more. 

The day, the year, the world, lay 
dead. 

With star-tipt candles foot and 
head; 

Great stars, that burn a whole half 
year, 

Stood forth, five-horned, and near, so 
near! 


XV 

The ghost-white day scarce drew a 
breath, 

The dying day shrank to a span; 
There was no life save that of man 
And woolly dogs—man, dogs, and 
death! 

The sun, a mass of molten gold, 
Surged feebly up, then sudden rolled 
Right back as in a beaten track 
And left the white world to the moon 
And five-homed stars of gleaming 
gold; 

Such stars as sang in silent rune— 
And oh, the cold, such killing cold 
As few have felt and none have told! 

XVI 

And now he knew the last dim light 
Lay on yon ice-shaft, steep and far, 
Where stood one bold, triumphant 
star, 

And he would dare the gleaming 
height, 

Would see the death-bed of the day, 
Whatever fate might make of it. 

A foolish thing, yet were it fit 
That he who dared to love, to say, 
To live, should look the last of Light 
Full in the face, then go his way 
All silent into lasting night 
As he had left her, on her height? 

XVII 

He climbed, he climbed, he neared at 
last 

The Golden Fleece of flitting Light! 
W*hen sudden as an eagle’s flight— 







504 


& H>ottg of Creation 


An eagle frightened from its nest 
That crowns the topmost, rock-reared 
crest— 

It swooped, it drooped, it, dying, 
passed. 

XVIII 

As when some sunny, poppy day 
The Mariposa scatters gold 
The while he takes his happy flight, 
Like star dust when the day is old, 
So passed his Light and all was night. 

XIX 

Some star-like scattered flecks of gold 
Flashed from the far and fading 
wings 

That keptthe sky, like living things— 
Then oh, the cold, the cruel cold! 

The light, the life of him had past, 
The spirit of the day had fled; 

The lover of God’s first-born, Light, 
Descended, mourning for his dead. 
The last of light, the very last 
He deemed that he should look upon 
Until God’s everlasting dawn 
Beyond this dread half year of night 
Had fled forever from his sight. 

XX 

'Twas death to go, thrice death to 
stay. 

Turn back, go southward, seek the 
sun? 

Yea, better die in search of light, 

Die boldly, face set forth for day, 

As many dauntless men have done, 


Than wail at fate and house with 
night. 

XXI 

Some woolly dogs, a low, dwarf- 
chief— 

His trained thews stood him now in 
stead—• 

Broad snow-shoes, skins, a laden 
sled.— 

That moon was as a brazen thief 
That dares to mock, laugh, and 
carouse! 

It followed, followed everywhere; 

He hid his face, that moon was there. 
Such painful light, such piteous pain! 
It broke into his very brain, 

As breaks a burglar in a house. 

XXII 

Scarce seen, a change came, slow, so 
slow! 

That moon sank slowly out of sight, 
The lower world of gleaming white 
Took on a somber band of woe, 

A wall of umber ’round about, 
vSo dim at first you could but doubt, 
That change there was, day after 
day— 

Nay, nay, not day, I can but say 
Sleep after sleep, sleep after sleep— 
That band grew darker, deep, more 

deep, 

Until there girt a dense dark wall, 

A low, black wall of ebon hue, 
Oppressive, deathlike as a pall; 

It walked with you, close compassed 
you, 




8 ibong of Creation 


505 


While not one thread of light shot 
through. 

Above the black a gird of brown 
Soft blending into amber hue, 

And then from out the cobalt blue 
Great, massive, golden stars swung 
down 

Like tow’rd lights of mountain town. 

XXIII 

At last the moon moved gaunt and 
slow, 

Half veiled her hollow, hungry face 
In amber, kept unsteady pace 
High up her star-set wall of snow, 
Nor scarcely deigned to look below. 

XXIV 

Then far beyond, above the night, 
Above tihe umber, amber hue, 

Above the lean moon’s blare and 
blight, 

One mighty ice shaft shimmered 
through; 

One gleaming peak, as white, as lone 
As you could think the great white 
throne 

Stood up against the cobalt blue, 
And kept companion with the stars 
Despite dusk walls or umber bars. 

XXV 

That wall, that hideous prison wall, 
That blackness, umber, amber hue, 

It cumbers you, encircles you, 

It mantles as a hearse’s pall. 

Your eyes lift to the star-pricked 
sky, 


You lift your frosted face, you pray 
That e’en the sickly moon might 
stay 

A time, if but to see you die. 

Yet how it blinds you, body, soul! 
You can no longer keep control. 

Your feebled senses fall astray: 

You cannot think, you dare not say. 

XXVI 

And now such under gleam of light, 
Such blazing, flaming, frightful glare; 
Such sudden, deadly, lightning gleam, 
Some like a monstrous, mad night¬ 
mare— 

Such hideous light, born of such 
night! 

It burst, with changeful interval, 
From out the ice beneath the wall, 
From out the groaning, surging 
stream 

That breathed, or tried to breathe, in 
vain, 

That struggled, strangled, shrieked 
with pain! 

’Twas as if he of Patmos read, 

Sat by with burning pen and said, 
With piteous and prophetic voice, 
“The earth shall pass with rustling 
noise.” 

XXVII 

Swift out the ice-crack, fiery red, 
Swift up the umber wall and back, 
Then ’round and ’round, up, down 
and back, 

The sudden lightning sped and sped, 
Until the walls hung burnished red, 
An instant red, then yellow, white, 



5°6 


3 H>ong of Creation 


With something more than earthly- 
light. 

XXVIII 

It blinds your eyes until they burn, 
Until you dare not look or turn, 

But think of him who saw and told 
The story of, the glory of, 

The jasper walls, the streets of gold, 
Where trails God’s unseen garments’ 
hem 

The holy New Jerusalem. 

XXIX 

Then while he trudged he tried to 
think— 

And then another sudden light, 

Or red or yellow, blue or white, 

Burst up from out the very brink 
Of where he passed and, left or right, 
It burnished yet again the walls! 
Then up, straight up against the stars 
That seemed as jostled, rent with 
jars! 

Then silent night. Where next and 
when? 

Then blank, black interval, and 
then— 

And oh, those blank, dread intervals, 
This writing on the umber walls! 

XXX 

The blazing Borealis passed, 

The umber walls fell down at last 
And left the great cathedral stars,— 
The five-homed stars, blent, burn¬ 
ished bars 


Of gold, red, gleaming, blinding 
gold— 

And still the cold, the killing cold! 

XXXI 

The moon resumed all heaven now, 
She shepherded the stars below 
Along her wide, white steeps of snow, 
Nor stooped nor rested, where or how. 
She bared her full white breast, she 
dared 

The sun e’er show his face again. 

She seemed to know no change, she 
kept 

Carousal constantly, nor slept, 

Nor turned aside a breath, nor 
spared 

The fearful meaning, the mad pain, 
The weary eyes, the poor, dazed brain 
That came at last to feel, to see. 

The dread, dead touch of lunacy. 

XXXII 

How loud the silence! Oh, how loud! 
How more than beautiful the shroud 
Of dead Light in the moon-mad north 
When great torch-tipping stars stand 
forth 

Above the black, slow-moving pall 
As at some fearful funeral! 

XXXIII 

9 

The moon blares as mad trumpets 
blare 

To marshaled warriors long and loud: 
The cobalt blue knows not a cloud, 
But oh, beware that moon, beware 


j 



& §j>otig of Creation 


507 


Her ghostly, graveyard, moon-mad 
stare! 

XXXIV 

Bewarewhite silence more than white! 
Beware the five-horned starry rune; 
Beware the groaning gorge below; 
Beware the wide, white world of 
snow, 

Where trees hang white as hooded 
nun— 

No thing not white, not one, not one, 
But most beware that mad white 
moon. 

XXXV 

All day, all day, all night, all night— 
Nay, nay, not yet or night or day. 
Just whiteness, whiteness, ghastly 
white 

Made doubly white by that mad moon 
And strange stars jangled out of tune! 

XXXVI 

At last he saw, or seemed to see, 
Above, beyond, another world. 

Far up the ice-hung path there curled 
A red-veined cloud, a canopy 
That topt the fearful ice-built peak 
That seemed to prop the very porch 
Of God’s house; then, as if a torch 
Burned fierce, there flashed a fiery 
streak, 

A flush, a blush on heaven’s cheek! 

* 

XXXVII 

The dogs sat down, men sat the sled 
And watched the flush, the blush of 
red. 


The little woolly dogs they knew, 

Yet scarce knew what they were 
about. 

They thrust their noses up and out, 
They drank the Light, what else to 
do? 

Their little feet, so worn, so true, 
Could scarce keep quiet for delight. 
They knew, they knew, how much 
they knew, 

The mighty breaking up of night! 
Their bright eyes sparkled with such 
joy 

That they at last should see loved 
Light! 

The tandem sudden broke all rule, 
Swung back, each leaping like a boy 
Let loose from some dark, ugly 
school— 

Leaped up and tried to lick his 
hand— 

Stood up as happy children stand. 
XXXVIII 

How tenderly God’s finger set 
His crimson flower on that height 
Above the battered walls of night! 

A little space it flourished yet, 

And then His angel, His first-born, 
Burst through, as on that primal 
morn! 

XXXIX 

His right hand held a sword of flame, 
His left hand javelins of light; 

And swift down, down, right down he 
came! 

His bright wings wide as the wide 
sky, 



m ibcmg of Creation 


508 

And right and left, and hip and thigh, 
He smote the marshaled hosts of 
night 

With all his majesty and might. 

XL 

The scared moon paled and she forgot 
Her pomp and pride and turned to 
fly. 

The ice-heaved palisades, the high 
Heaved peaks that propped God’s 
house, the stars 

That flamed above the prison bars, 
As battle stars with fury fraught, 
Were burned to ruin and were not. 

XLI 

Then glad earth shook her raiment 
wide, 

And free and far, and stood up tall, 
As some proud woman, satisfied, 
Forgets, and yet remembers all. 

She stood exultant, till her form, 

A queen above some battle storm, 
Blazed with the glory, the delight 
Of battle with the hosts of night. 
And night was broken. Light at last 
Lay on the Yukon. Night had 
passed. 

CANTO III 

I 

The days grew longer, stronger, yet 
The strong man grew then as a child. 
Too hard the tension and too wild 
The terror; he could not forget. 

And now at last when Light was, now 


He could not see nor lift his eyes, 
Nor lift a hand in any wise. 

It was as when a race is won 
By some strong favorite athlete, 
Then sinks down dying at your feet. 

II 

The red chief led him on and on 
To his high lodge by gorged Yukon 
And housed him kindly as his own, 
Blind, broken, dazed, and so alone! 

III 

The low bark lodge was desolate, 

And deathly cold by night, by day. 
Poor, hungered children of the snows, 
They heaped the fire as he froze, 

Did all they could, yet what could 
they 

But pity his most piteous fate 
And pitying, silent, watch and wait? 

IV 

His face was ever to the wall 
Or buried in his skins; the light— 

He could not bear the light of day 
Nor bear the heaped-up flame at 
night— 

Not bear one touch of light at all. 
There are no pains, no sharp death 
throes, 

So dread as blindness of the snows. 

V 

He thought of home, he thought of 
her, 


j 



3 £?ons of Creation 


509 


Thought most of her, and pictured 
how 

She walked in springtime splendor 
where 

Warm sea winds twined her heavy 
hair 

In great Greek braids piled fold on 
fold, 

Or loosely blown, as poppy’s gold. 

VI 

And then he thought of her afar 
Mid follies, and his soul at war 
With self, self will, and iron fate 
Grew as a blackened thing of hate! 
And then he prayed forgiveness, 
prayed 

As one in sin, and sore afraid. 

VII 

And praying so he dreamed, he 
dreamed 

She sat there looking in his face, 

Sat silent by in that dread place, 

Sat silent weeping, so it seemed, 

Sat still, sat weeping silently. 

He saw her tears and yet he knew, 
The blind man knew he could not see, 
Scarce hope to see for years and 
years. 

And then he seemed to hear her 
tears, 

To hear them steal her loose hair 
through 

And gently fall, as falls the dew 
And still, small rain of summer 
mom, 

That makes for harvests, yellow corn. 


VIII 

He raised his hand, he touched her 
hair; 

He did not start, he did not say; 

It seemed that she was surely there; 
He only questioned would she stay. 
How glad he was! Why, now, what 
care 

For hunger, blindness, blinding pain, 
Could he but touch her hair again? 

IX 

He heard her rise, give quick com¬ 
mand 

To patient, skin-clad, savage men 
To heap the wood, come, go, and then 
Go feed their woolly friends at hand, 
To bring fresh stores, still heap fresh 
flame, 

Then go, then come, as morning came. 

X 

All seemed so real! He dared not 
stir, 

Lest he might break this dream of her. 
How holy, holy sweet her voice, 

Like benediction o’er the dead! 

So glad he was, so grateful he, 

And thanking God most fervently, 
Forgot his plight, forgot his pain, 
And deep at heart did he rejoice; 

Yet prayed he might not wake again 
To peril, blindness, piteous pain. 

XI 

Then, as he hid his face, she came 
And leaned quite near and took his 
hand. 



g H>ong of Creation 


5 io 

’Twas cold, ’twas very cold, 'twas 
thin 

And bony, black, just skin and bone, 
Just bone and wrinkled mummy-skin. 
She held it out against the flame, 
Then pressed it with her two warm 
hands. 

It seemed as she could feel the sands 
Of life slow sift to shadow land. 

Close on his hurt eyes she laid hand, 
The while she, wearied, nodded, 
slept. 

The flame burned low, the wind’s wild 
moan 

Awakened her. Cold as a stone 
His starved form, shrunken to a 
shade, 

Stretched in the darkness, and, dis¬ 
mayed, 

She put the robes back and she crept 
Close down beside and softly laid 
Her warm, strong form to his and 
slept, 

The while her dusk men vigil kept. 

XII 

That long, long night, that needed 
rest! 

Then flames at mom; her precious 
store 

Heaped hard by on the earthen floor 
While mute brown men, starved men, 
stood by 

To wait the slightest breath or sigh 
Or sign of wakening request— 

What silence, patience, tmst! What 
rest! 

Of all good things, I say the best 
Beneath God’s sun is rest, and—rest. 


XIII 

She slowly wakened from her sleep 
To find him sleeping, silent, deep! 
What food for all, what feast for all, 
To chief or slave, or great or small, 
Ranged round the flaming, glowing 
heap— 

Such lank, lean flank, such hungry 
zest! 

Such reach of limb, such rest, such 
rest! 

XIV 

Why, he had gone, had gladly gone 
In quest of his eternal Light, 

Beyond all dolours, that dread night, 
Had she not reached her hand and 
drawn, 

Hard drawn him back and held him 
so, 

Held him so hard he could not go. 

And yet he lingered by the brink, 

As dulled and dazed as you can 
think— 

Long, long he lingered, helpless lay, 

A babe, a broken pot of clay. 

XV 

She made a broader couch, she sat 
All day beside and held his hand 
Lest he might sudden slip away. 

And she all night beside him lay, 
Lest these last grains of sinking sand 
Might in the still night slip and pass. 
With none at hand to turn the glass. 


) 




3 il>cmg of Creation 


XVI 

And did the red men prate thereat? 
Why, they had laid them down and 
died 

For her, those simple dusky sons 
Of nature, children of the snows, 
Bom where the ice-bound river runs, 
Born where the Arctic torrent flows. 
Look you for evil? Look for ill 
Or good, you find just what you will. 

XVII 

He spake no more than babe might 
speak: 

His eyes were as the kitten’s eyes 
That open slowly with surprise 
Then close as if to sleep a week; 

But still he held, as if he knew, 

The warm, strong hand, the healthful 
hand, 

The dauntless, daring hand and true, 
Nor, while he waked, would his un¬ 
fold, 

But held, as drowning man might 
hold 

Who hopes no more of life or land, 

But, as from habit, clutches hand. 

XVIII 

Once, as she thought he surely slept, 
She slowly drew herself aside, 

He thrust his hand as terrified, 
Caught back her hand, kissed it and 
wept. 

Then she, too, wept, wept tears like 
rain, 

Her first warm, welcome happy tears, 


511 

Drew in her breath, put by her fears 
And knew she had not dared in vain. 

XIX 

Yet day by day, hard on the brink 
He hung with half-averted head, 

As silent, listless, as the dead, 

As sad to see as you can think. 

Their lorn lodge sat the terraced 
steep 

Above the wide, wild, groaning 
stream 

That, like some monster in a dream, 
Cried out in broken, breathless sleep; 
And looking down, night after night, 
She saw leap forth that sword of 
Light. 

XX 

She guessed, she knew the flaming 
sword 

That turned which way to watch and 
ward 

And guard the wall and ever guard 
The Tree of Life, as it is writ. 

The hand, the hilt, she could not see, 
Nor yet the true, life-giving tree, 

Nor cherubim that cherished it, 

But yet she saw the flaming sword, 
As written in the Book, the Word. 

XXI 

She held his hana, he did not stir, 
And as she nightly sat and sat, 

She silent gazed and guessed thereat. 
His fancies seemed to come to her; 
She could not see the Tree of Life, 
How fair it grew or where it grew, 





512 


8 gpottg of Creation 


But this she knew and surely knew, 
That gleaming sword meant holy 
strife 

To keep and guard the Tree of Life. 

XXII 

Oh, flaming sword, rest not nor rust! 
The Tree of Life is hewn and torn, 
The Tree of Life is bowed and worn, 
The Tree of Life is in the dust. 

Hew brute man down, hew branch 
and root, 

Till he may spare the Tree of Life, 
The pale, the piteous woman, wife— 
Till he shall learn, as learn he must, 
To lift her fair face from the dust. 

XXIII 

She watched the wabbly moose at 
morn 

Climb steeply up the further steep, 
Huge, solitary and forlorn. 

She saw him climb, turn, look and 
keep 

Scared watch, this wild, ungainly 
beast, 

This mateless, lost thing and the last 
That roamed before and since the 
flood— 

That climbed and climbed the top¬ 
most hill 

As if he heard the deluge still. 

XXIV 

The sparse, brown children of the 
snow 

Began to stir, as sap is stirred 
In springtime by the song of bird, 


And trudge by, wearily and slow, 
Beneath their load of dappled skins 
That weighed them down as weighty 
sins. 

XXV 

And oft they paused, turned and 
looked back 

Along their desolate white track, 
With arched hand raised to shield 
their eyes— 

Looked back as if for something lost 
Or left behind, of precious cost, 
Sad-eyed and silent, mutely wise, 

As just expelled from Paradise. 

XXVI 

How sad their dark, fixed faces 
seemed, 

As if of long-remembered sins! 

They listless moved, as if they 
dreamed, 

As if they knew not where to go 
In all their wide, white world of snow. 
She could but think upon the day 
God made them garments from the 
skins 

Of beasts, then turned and bade them 
go, 

Go forth as willed they, to and fro. 

XXVII 

Between the cloud-capt walls of 

snow 

A wide-winged raven, croaking low, 
Passed and repassed, each weary 
day, 

And would not rest, not go, not stay, 



8 ^>ong of Creation 


5i3 


But ever, ever to and fro, 

As when forth from the ark of old; 
And ever as he passed, each day 
Let fall one croak, so cold, so cold 
It seemed to strike the ice below 
And break in fragments hard as fate; 
It fell so cold, so desolate. 

XXVIII 

At last the sun hung hot and high, 
Hung where that heartless moon had 
hung. 

A dove-hued moose bird sudden sung 
And had glad answerings hard by; 
The icy steeps began to pour 
Mad tumult down the rock-built 
steep. 

The great Yukon began to roar, 

As if with pain in broken sleep. 

The breaking ice began to groan, 

The very mountains seemed to moan. 

XXIX 

Then, bursting like a cannon’s boom, 
The great stream broke its icy bands, 
And rushed and ran with outstretched 
hands 

That laid hard hold the willow lands, 
Rent wide the somber, gopher gloom 
And roared for room, for room, for 
room! 

XXX 

The stalwart moose climbed hard 
his steep, 

Climbed till he wallowed, brisket 
deep, 


In soft’ning, sinking steeps of snow, 
Then raging, turned to look below. 

xxxr 

He tossed, shook high his antlered 
head, 

Blew blast on blast through his huge 
nose, 

Then, wild with savage rage and 
fright, 

He climbed, climbed to the highest 
height, 

As if he felt the flood once more 
Had come to swallow sea and shore. 

XXXII 

The waters sank, the man uprose, 

A boat of skins, his Eskimo, 

Then down from out the world of 
snow 

They passed tow’rd seas of calm 
repose 

Where wide sails waited, warm sea 
wind, 

For mango isles and tamarind. 
*•••••• 

XXXIII 

What wonders ward these Arctic 
seas! 

What dread, dumb, midnight days 
are these! 

A wonder world of night and light; 

A land of blackness blent with white, 
A land of water, ices, snow, 

Where ice is emperor and floe 
And berg and pack and jam and drift 
Forever grind and gnaw and lift 


33 





514 


8 £?ona of Creation 


And tide about the bleak North 
Pole— 

Where bull whales bellow, blow and 
blow 

Great rainbows in their lover’s quest 
With all a sunland lover’s zest! 

A land of contradictions and 
A desolated dead man’s land! 

A land of neither life nor soul; 

A land where isles on isles of bone 
And totem towns lie lifeless, lone— 
Their tombstones just a totem pole. 

XXXIV 

Their cedar boat deep ballasted 
With bags of bleak, Koyukuk’s gold, 
An ancient Bedford salt at head, 
Drives through the ice floes, jolly, 
bold ! 

What isles! Saghalien beyond, 
Bleak, blown Saghalien, where bear 
And wild men are as one and share 
Their caves and shaggy coats of hair 
In close affection, warm and fond. 

At least, so ran the jolly tale 
Of him who steered them on and on 
Tow’rd Saghalien from far Yukon— 
This Bedford salt who lassoed whales, 
Or said he did, of largest size, 

And so, according, made his tales 
Of whales to fit in size his lies, 

The while they sailed tow’rd Sag¬ 
halien. 

XXXV 

What worlds, these wild Aleutian 
Isles! 

What wonder worlds, unnamed, un¬ 
known ! 


They lift a thousand icy miles 
From Unalaska, bleak and lone 
And bare as icebergs anywhere, 

Save where the white fox, black fox, 
red, 

Starts from his ice and snow-built 
bed, 

And like some strange bird flits the 
air. 

You sometimes see the white sea 
bear, 

A mother seal with babe asleep 
Held close to breast in careful keep, 
And here a thousand sea birds scream 
And see the wide-winged albatross 
In silence bear his shadow cross 
As still and restful as a dream— 
Naught else is here; here life is not; 
’Tis as the land that God forgot. 

XXXVI 

And yet it was not always so; 

This old salt tells a thousand tales 
Of love and joy, of weal and woe, 
That happened in the long ago 
When reindeer ranged the mossy 
vales 

That dot this thousand miles of isles; 
That here the fond Aleutian maid, 
With naught to fright or make afraid, 
Lived, loved and silent went her way 
As yon swift albatross in grey. 

But totem towns have naught to say 
Of all her tears and all her smiles. 

XXXVII 

And this, one of so many tales, 

This Bedford salt in quest of whales! 
He tells of one once favored isle 



& £s>ong of Creation 


5*5 


Far out, a full five hundred mile, 
Where dwelt a Russian giant, knave, 
A pirate, priest, and all in one, 

With many wives, and reindeer white 
As Saint Elias in the sun; 

Yet every wife was as a slave 
To herd his white deer night by night 
And day by day to pluck away 
Each hair that was not perfect white. 

XXXVIII 

“And," says this bearded Bedford 
salt, 

This man of whales and wondrous 
tales 

Of seas of ice and Arctic gales, 

This truthful salt without one fault— 
“ White reindeer’s milk is yellow gold 
And he who drinks it lives for aye; 
He will not drown, he cannot die, 
Nor hunger, thirst, nor yet grow cold, 
But live and live a thousand lives— 
Ten thousand deer, two thousand 
wives.” 

XXXIX 

“And what the end?” He turns his 
quid, 

This ancient, sea-baked, Bedford 
man— 

“The thing bio wed up, you bet it did, 
A bloomin’s big volcano, and 
So bright that you can stand and 
write 

Your log most any bloomin’ night, 
Five hundred miles away to-day. 
Them deers? They’re now the milky 
way.” 

But now enough of hairy men, 


Of monstrous beasts before the flood, 
White Arctic chine, black gopher 
wood, 

Of flower-fed skies, of ice-sown seas; 
Come, let us court love-land again. 
Behold, how good is love, how fair! 
Behold, how fair is love, how good! 

A sense of burning sandalwood 
Is in my nostrils and the air 
Is redolent of cherry trees 
Red, pink, and brown with Nippon 
bees. 

BOOK THIRD 

CANTO I 

I 

Of all fair trees to look upon, 

Of all trees “pleasant to the sight,” 
Give me the Poet’s tree of white—• 
Pink cherry trees of blest Nippon 
With lovers passing to and fro— 

Pink cherry lanes of Tokio: 

Ten thousand cherry trees and each 
Hung white with Poet’s plaint and 
speech. 

II 

Of all fair lands to look upon, 

To feel, to breathe, at Orient dawn, 

I count this baby land the best, 
Because here all things rest and rest 
And all men love all things most fair 
And beautiful and rich and rare; 

And women are as cherry trees 
With treasures laden, brown with 
bees. 




& g>ong of Creation 



hi 

Of all loved lands to look upon, 

Give me this love land of Nippon, 

Its bright, brave men, its maids at 
prayer, 

Its peace, its carelessness of care. 

IV 

A mobile sea of silver mist 
Sweeps up for morn to mount upon: 
Then yellow, saffron, amethyst— 
Such changeful hues has blest 
Nippon! 

See but this sunrise, then forget 
All scenes, all suns, all lands save one, 
Just matin sun and vesper sun; 

This land of inland seas of light; 

This land that hardly recks of night. 

V 

The vesper sun of blest Nippon 
Sinks crimson in the Yellow Sea: 

The purple butterfly is gone, 

The rainbow bird housed in his tree— 
Hushed, as the last loved, trembling 
note 

Still thrills his tuneful Orient throat— 
Hushed, as the harper’s weary hand 
Waits morn to waken and command. 

VI 

Fast homeward bound, brown, busy 
feet 

In wooden shoon clang up the street; 
But not through all the thousand year 
In Buddha’s temple may you hear 
One step, see hue of sun or sea, 


Though wait you through eternity: 
All is so still, so soft, subdued— 

The very walls are hueless hued. 

VII 

Behold brown, kneeling penitents! 
What perfumed place of silent prayer! 
Burned Senko-ho, sweet frankincense! 
And hear what silence everywhere! 
Pale, pensive priests pass here and 
there 

And silent lisp with bended head 
The Golden Rule on scrolls of gold 
As gentle, ancient Buddhists read 
These precepts sacred unto them, 
And watched the world grow old, so 
old, 

Ere yet the Babe of Bethlehem. 

VIII 

How leaps the altar’s forky flame! 
How dreamful, dense, the sweet 
incense, 

As pale priests bum, in Buddha’s 
name, 

Red-written sins of penitents— 

Mute penitents with bended head 
And unsaid sins writ deep in red. 

IX 

Now slow a priest with staff and scroll, 
Barefoot, as mendicant, and old— 
You sudden start, you lift your head, 
You hear and yet you do not hear, 

A sound, a song, so sweet, so dear 
It well might waken yonder dead. 

His staff has touched the sacred bowl 
Of copper, silver, shot with gold 


) 



9 H>oug of Creation 


517 


And wrought so magic-like of old 
That all sweet sounds, or east or west, 
Sought this still hollow where to rest. 
Hear, hear the voice of Buddha’s bell, 
Bonsho-no-oto! All is well! 

X 

And you, you, lean, lean low to hear: 
You doubt your ears, you doubt your 
eyes, 

Your hand is lifted to your ear. 

You fear, how cruelly you fear 
The melody may die—it dies— 

Dies as the swan dies, as the sun 
Dies, bathed in dewy benison. 

XI 

It lives again; you breathe again! 
What cadences that speak, that stir, 
Take form and presence, as of her 
Whom first you loved, ere yet of men. 
It utters essence as a sound; 

As Santalum sends from the ground 
For devotee and worshipper 
Where saints lie buried, balm and 
myrrh. 

XII 

But now so low, so faint, so low 
You lean to hear yet hardly hear. 
Again your hand is to your ear, 
Your lips are parted, leaning so, 

And now again you catch your breath 
Such breath as when you lie becalmed 
At sea, and sudden start to feel 
A cooling wave and quickened keel 
And see your tall sail court the shore. 


You hear, you more than hear, you 
feel, 

As when the white wave shimmereth. 
Your love is at your side once more, 
An essence of some song embalmed, 
Long hidden in the house of death— 
You breathe it, as your Lady’s 
breath! 

XIII 

Now low, so low, so soft, so still, 

As when a single leaf is stirred, 

As when some doubtful matin bird 
Dreams russet morning decks his 
hill— 

Then nearer, clearer, lilts each note 
And longer, stronger, swells each 
wave— 

Ten thousand dead have burst the 
grave, 

An angel’s song in every throat! 

The forky flame turns and returns 
To burn and burn red sins away; 
Such incense on the altar burns 
As some may breathe but none may 
say, 

Though cherished to their dying day. 

XIV 

And now the sandaled pilgrims fall 
With faces to the jeweled floor— 

The incense darkens as a pall, 

As clouds that darken more and more. 
You dare not lift your bended head— 
The silence is as if the dead 
Alone had passed the temple door. 
And now the Bonsho notes, the song! 
So stronger now, so strong, so strong! 




& £j>ong of Creation 



xv 

The black smokes of the ashen urn 
Where brown priests burn red sins 
away 

Begin to stir, to start, to turn, 

To seek the huge, bossed copper 
door— 

As evil things that dare not stay. 
The while the rich notes roll and roar 
To drive dread, burned sin out before 
Calm Dia-busta, the adored, 

As cherubim with flaming sword. 

XVI 

And far, so far, such rich notes roll 
That barefoot fishers far at sea 
Fall prone and pray all silently 
For wife and babes that wait the 
strand, 

The tugging net clutched tight in 
hand, 

The while they bow a space to pray; 
For every asking, eager soul 
Knows well the time and patiently 
It lists an hundred Ri away. 

XVII 

The thousand pilgrims girt in straw 
That press Fujame’s holy peak, 
Prone, fasting, penitent and meek, 
Hear notes as from the stars and pray, 
As we who know and keep the Law— 
As we who walk Jerusalem 
With pilgrim step and pallid cheek. 
How earnestly they silent pray 
To keep their Golden Rule alway, 
To do no thing, or night or day, 


Though tempted by a diadem, 

They would not others do to them* 

XVIII 

And wee, brown wives, on high, wild 
steeps 

Of terraced rice or bamboo patch 
Where toil, hard toil incessant, keeps 
Sweet virtue, sweet sleep, and a 
thatch, 

They hear and hold, with closer fold, 
Their bare, brown babes against the 
cold. 

They croon and croon, with soothing 

care, 

To babes meshed in their mighty hair, 
And loving, crooning, breathe a 
prayer. 

XIX 

The great notes pass, pass on and on, 
As light sweeps up the doors of dawn, 
And now the strong notes are no 
more, 

But feebler tones wail out and cry, 

As sad things that have lost their way 
At night and dare not bide the day 
But turn back to the shrine to die, 
And steal in softly through the door 
And gently fade along the floor. 

XX 

The barefoot priest slow fades from 
sight, 

Faint and more faint the last notes 
fall; 

You hear them now, then not at all, 
And now the last note of the night 


l 



3 iisxmg of Creation 


5i9 


Wails out, as when a lover cries 
At night, and at the altar dies. 

XXI 

How sweet, how sad, how piteous 
sweet 

This last note at the bowed monk’s 
feet 

That dies as dies some saintly light— 
That dies so like the sweet swan 
dies— 

So loving sad, so tearful sweet, 

This last, lost note—Good night, 
good night. 

Good night to holy Buddha’s bell— 
Bonsho-no-oto! All is well— 

A mist is rising to the eyes! 

CANTO II 

I 

This water town of Tokio 

Is as a church with priests at prayer, 

With restful silence everywhere, 

Or night or day, or high or low. 

You something hear a turtle dove, 

A locust trilling from his tree 
In chorus with his mated love, 

May see a raven in the air, 
Wide-winged and high, but even he 
Is as a shadow in the stream, 

As dreamful, silent as a dream. 

II 

They could but note the silent maids 
That carried, with a mother’s care, 
The silent baby, ofttimes bare 


As birthtime through their Caran 
shades. 

Ten thousand babies, everywhere, 
But not one wail, or day or night, 

To put the locust’s love to flight, 

Or mar the chorus of the dove. 

And why? Why, they were born of 
love: 

Born soberly, born sanely, clean, 

As Indian babes of old were born 
Ere yet the white man’s face was 
seen, 

Ere yet the sensuous white man came; 
Bom clean as love, of lovelight born 
Some long lost Rocky Mountain mom 
Where snow-topt turrets first took 
flame 

And flashed God’s image in God’s 
name! 

III 

Tell me, my flint-scarred pioneer, 

My skin-clad Carson, mountaineer, 
Who met red Sioux, met dusk Modoc, 
Red hand to hand in battle shock 
Where men but met to dare and die, 
Did ever you once see or hear 
One poor brown Indian baby qry? 

IV 

The long, hot march by ashen plain, 
The burning trail by lava bed, 

Babes lashed to back in corded pain 
Until the swollen bare legs bled, 

But on and on their mothers led, 

If but to find a place to die. 

Yet who, of all men that pursued 
This dying race, year after year, 

By burning plain or beetling wood, 




520 


gl gbottg of Creation 


Did ever see, did ever hear, 

One bleeding Indian baby cry? 

V 

The starving mother’s breasts were 
dry, 

There scarce was time to stop and 
drink, 

The swollen legs grew black as ink— 
There was not even time to die. 

And yet, through all this fifty year, 
What hounding man did ever hear 
One piteous Indian baby cry? 

VI 

Nay, they were bom as men were 
born 

Far back in Jacob’s Bible mom; 
Were born of love, born lovingly, 
Unlike the fretful child of lust, 

When love gat love and trust gat 
trust— 

And trusting, dared to silent die 
In torture and disdain a tear, 

If mother willed, nor question why. 
Yea, I have seen so many die, 

This cruel, hard, half-hundred year, 
And I have cried, to see, to hear— 
But never heard one baby cry. 

VII 

Shot down in Castle Rocks I lay 
One midnight, lay as one shot dead, 

A lad, and lone, years, years of yore. 
I heard deep Sacramento roar, 

Saw Shasta glitter far away— 

I never saw such moon before 
And yet I could not turn my head, 


Nor move my lips to cry or say. 
Red arrows in both form and face 
Held form and face tight pinned in 
place 

Against the gnarled, black chaparral, 
As one fast nailed against a wall 
With scant half room to wholly fall— 
The hot, thick, gurgling, gasping 
breath, 

The thirst, the thirsting unto death! 
VIII 

And then a child against my feet 
Crawled feebly and crept close to die; 
I moaned, “Oh baby, won’t you cry? 
’Twould be as music piteous sweet 
Tb hear in this dread place of death 
Just one lorn cry, just one sweet 
breath 

Of life, here ’mid the moonlit dead, 
The mingled dead, white men and 
red. 

IX 

“Oh, bleeding, blood-red baby, cry 
Just once before I, choking die! 

And maybe some white man will hear 
In yonder fortressed camp anear 
And bring blest drink for you and I— 
Oh, baby, please, please, baby, cry!” 

X 

A crackling in the chaparral 
And then a lion in the clear 
From which the dying babe had crept, 
Swift as a yellow sunbeam, leapt 
And stood so tall, so near, so near! 

So cruel near, so sinuous, tall— 

Some Landseer’s picture on a wall. 



& IS>ong of Creation 


XI 

I never saw such length of limb, 
Such arm as God had given him! 

His paws, they swallowed up the 
earth, 

His midnight eyes shot arrows out 
The while his tail whipped swift 
about— 

His tail was surely twice his girth! 

XII 

His nostrils wide with smell of blood 
Reached out above us where he stood 
And snuffed the dank, death-laden air 
Till half his yellow teeth were bare. 
His yellow length was bare and lank— 
I never saw such hollow flank; 

’Twas as a grave is, as a pall, 

A flabby black flank—scarce at all! 

XIII 

He sudden quivered, tail to jaws, 
Crouched low, unsheathed his shining 
claws—■ 

“Oh, baby, baby, won’t you cry, 

Just once before we two must die?” 
I felt him spring, clutch up, then leap 
Swift down the rock-built, broken 
steep; 

I heard a crunch of bones, but I— 

I did not hear that baby cry! 

CANTO III 

I 

I would forget—help me forget, 

The while we fondly linger yet 


521 

The flower-field so sweet, so sweet, 
With Buddha at fair Fuji’s feet. 

Fair Fuji-san, throned Queen of air! 
Fair woman pure as maiden’s prayer; 
As pure as prayer to the throne 
Of God, as lone as God, as lone 
As Buddha at her feet in prayer— 
Fair Fuji-san, so more than fair! 

II 

Fair Fuji-san, Kamlcura, and 
Reposeful, calm Buddha the blest, 
With folded hands that rest and rest 
On eld Kamkura’s blood-soaked sand. 
Here russet apples hang at hand 
So russet rich that when they fall 
’Tis as if some gold-bounden ball 
Sank in the loamy, warm, wet sand 
Where hana, kusa, carpet earth 
That never knows one day of dearth. 

III 

Kamkura, where Samurai bled, 
Where Buddha sits to rest and rest! 
Was ever spot so beauteous, blest? 
Was ever red rose quite so red? 

IV 

Fair Fuji from her mountain chine 
Above her curtained courts of pine 
Looks down on calm Kamkura’s sea 
So tranquil, dreamful, restfully 
You fold your arms across your breast 
And rest with her, with Buddha rest, 
While silence musks the warm sea 
air— 

Just silence, silence everywhere. 





522 


& £>ong of Creation 


v 

Here midst this rest, this pure repose, 
'This benediction, peace, and prayer, 
That as religion was, and where 
A breath of senko blessed the air, 
T^he erstwhile children of the snows 
Came silently and sat them down 
Within a Kusa coigne that lay 
Above the buried Bushi town, 

Above the dimpled, beauteous Bay 
Of sun and shadow, gold and brown, 
And Care blew by the other way— 
A breath, a butterfly, a fay. 

VI 

And one was as fair as Fuji, fair, 
True, trusting as some maid at prayer, 
Aye, one as Buddha was, but one 
Was turbulent of blood and was 
An instant of the earth and sun; 

As when the ice-tied torrent thaws 
And sudden leaps from frost and snow 
Headlong and lawless, far below— 

As when the sap flows suddenly 
And warms the wind-tost mango tree. 

VII 

He caught her hand, he pressed her 
side, 

He pressed her close and very close, 
He breathed her as you breathe a rose, 
Nor was in any wise denied. 

Her comely, shapely limbs pushed out 
As elden on her golden shore; 

Her long, strong arms reached round 
about 

And bent along the flowered floor, 
While full length on her back she lay 


Like some wild, beauteous beast at 
play. 

VIII 

He thrust him forward, caught her, 
caught 

Her form as if she were of naught. 
His outstretched face was as a flame, 
His breath was as a furnace is, 

He kissed her mouth with such mad 
kiss 

Her rich, full lips shut tight with 
shame. 

IX 

As one of old who tilled the mould, 
Took triple strength from earth and 
thrust 

His burly foeman to the dust, 

She sprang straight up, and springing 
threw 

Him from her with such voltage he 
Knew not how he might, writhing, 
rise, 

Or dare to meet again those eyes 
That seemed to bum him through and 
through; 

Or daring, how could he undo 
His coward, selfish deed of shame 
Enforced as in religion’s name? 

And she so trustful, so alone! 

’Twas as if some sweet, sacred nun 
Had opened wide her door to one 
Who slew her on her altar stone. 

X 

She passed and silent passed and slow. 
What strength, what length of limb, 
what eyes! 



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523 


She left him lying low, so low, 

So crested and so surely slain 
He deemed he never more might rise, 
Or rising, see her face again. 

And yet, her look was not of hate, 
But pity, as akin to pain; 

And when she touched the temple gate 
She paused, turned, beckoned he 
should go, 

Go wash his hands of carnal clay 
And go alone his selfish way— 
Forever, ever and a day! 

CANTO IV 

I 

How cold she grew, how chilled, how 
changed, 

Since that loathed scene by Nippon’s 
sea! 

No longer flexile, trustful, she 
Held him aloof, hushed and estranged, 
A fallen star, yet still her star, 

And she his heaven, earth, his all, 

To follow, worship, near or far, 

Let good befall or ill befall. 

But he was silent. He had sold 
His birthright, sold for even less 
Than any poor, cheap pottage mess, 
His right to speak forth, warm and 
bold, 

And look her unshamed in the face. 
Mute, penitent, he kept his place, 

As silent as that Nippon saint 
That knew not prayer, praise, or 
plaint. 

II 

Saint Silence seems some maid of 
prayer, 


God’s arm about her when she prays 
And where she prays and everywhere, 
Or storm-strewn or sun-down days. 
What ill to Silence can befall, 

Since Silence knows no ill at all? 

III 

Saint Silence seems some twilight sky 
That leans as with her weight of stars 
To rest, to rest, no more to roam, 
But rest and rest eternally. 

She loosens and lets down the bars, 
She brings the kind-eyed cattle home, 
She breathes the fragrant field of hay 
And heaven is not far away. 

IV 

The deeps of soul are still the deeps 
Where stately Silence ever keeps 
High court with calm Nirvana, where 
No shallows break the noisy shore 
Or beat, with sad, incessant roar, 

The fettered, fevered world of care 
As noisome vultures fret the air. 

V 

The star-sown seas ofthoughtare still, 
As when God’s plowmen plant their 
corn 

Along the mellow grooves at morn 
In patient trust to wait His will. 

The star-sown seas of thought are 
wide, 

But voiceless, noiseless, deep as night; 
Disturb not these, the silent seas 
Are sacred unto souls allied, 

As golden poppies unto bees. 




of Creation 


3 £§>ong 


524 

Here, from the first, rude giants 
wrought, 

Here delved, here scattered stars of 
thought 

To grow, to bloom in years unborn, 
As grows the gold-horned yellow corn. 

VI 

They lay low-bosomed on the bay 
Of Honolulu, soft the breeze 
And soft the dreamful light that lay 
On Honolulu’s Sabbath seas— 

The ghost of sunshine gone away— 
Red roses on the dust of day, 

Pale, pink, red roses in the west 
Where lay in state dead Day at rest. 

VII 

Their dusky boatman set his face 
From out the argent, opal sea 
Tow’rd where his once proud, warlike 
race 

Lay housed in everlasting dust. 

He sang low-voiced, sad, silently, 

In listless chorus with the tide, 
Because his race was not, because 
His sun-born race had dared, defied 
The highest, holiest of His laws 
And so fell stricken and so died— 
Died stricken of dread leprosy 
Begot of lust—prone in the dust— 
Degenerating love to lust. 

VIII 

Sweet sandal-wood burned bow and 
stem 

In colored, shapely crates of clay; 
Sweet sandal-wood long laid away, 


Long caverned with dead battle kings 
Whose dim ghosts rise betimes and 
bum 

The torch and touch sweet taro 
strings— 

Such giant, stalwart, stately kings! 

IX 

Sweet sandal-wood, long ages tom 
From cloud-capt steeps where 

thunders slept, 

Then hidden where dead giants kept 
Their sealed Walhalla, waiting 
morn— 

Deep-hidden, till such sweet perfume 
Betrayed their long-forgotten tomb. 

X 

The sea’s perfume and incense lay 
About, above, lay everywhere; 

The sea swung incense through the 
air— 

The censer, Honolulu’s Bay. 

And then the song, the soft, low rune, 
As sad, as if dead kings kept tune. 

XI 

The moon hung twilight from each 
horn, 

Soft, silken twilight, soft to touch 
As baby lips—and over much 
Like to the baby breath of mom. 
Huge, five-horned stars swung left 
and right 

O’er argent, opal, amber night. 



3 £*>ong of Creation 


525 


XII 

What changeful, dreamful, ardent 
light, 

When Mauna Loa, far afield, 

Uprose and shook his yellow shield 
Below the battlements of night; 
Below the Southern Cross, o’er seas 
That sang such silent symphonies! 

XIII 

Far lava peaks still lit the night, 

Like holy candles foot and head, 
That dimly burned above the dead, 
Above the dead and buried Light. 
There rose such perfume of the sea, 
Such Sabbath breath, soft, silently, 
As when some burning censer swings, 
As when some surpliced choir sings. 

XIV 

He scarce had lived save in such fear, 
But now yon mitered tongues of flame 
That tipped the star-lit lava peak 
Brought back some fervor to his 
cheek 

And made him half forget his shame. 
He could but heed, he could but hear 
That call across the walls of night 
From triple mitered tongues of Light, 
That soulful, silent, perfumed night. 
He said—and yet he said no word; 
No word he said, yet all she heard, 

So close their souls lay, in such Light, 
That holy Honolulu night. 

XV 

“Lies yonder Nebo’s mount, my 
Soul ?—• 


The Promised Land beyond, beyond 
The grave of rest, the broken bond, 
Where manly force must lose control, 
Must press the grapes and fill the 
bowl, 

Go round and round, rest, rise up, eat, 
Tread grapes, then wash the wearied 
feet? 

XVI 

“I know I have enough of bliss, 

I know full well I should not dare 
To ask a deeper joy than this, 

This scene, your presence, this soft 
air, 

This incense, this deep sense of rest 
Where long-sought, sweet Arcadia 
lies 

Against these gates of Paradise. 

XVII 

“And yet, hear me, I dare ask more. 
Lone Adam had all Paradise 
And still how poor he was, how poor, 
With all things his beneath the skies! 
Aye, sweet it were to roam or rest, 
To ever rest and ever roam 
As you might reck and reckon best; 
But still there comes a sense of home, 
Of hearthstone, happy babes at play, 
And you and I—not far away. 

XVIII 

“Nay, do not turn aside your face— 
1 Be fruitful ye and multiply’ 

Meant all; it meant the human race, 
And he or she shall surely die 
Despised and pass to nothingness 



526 


& &ong of Creation 


Who does not love the little dress, 
The heaven in the mother’s eyes, 
The holy, sacred, sweet surprise 
The time she tells how truly blest, 
With face laid blushing to his breast. 

XIX 

“How flower-like the little frock— 
The daffodil forerunning spring— 
The doll-like shoes, socks, everything, 
And each a secret, secret stored! 

And yet each day the little hoard, 
As careful merchants note their stock, 
Is noted with such happy care 
As only angel mothers share. 

XX 

“At last to hear her rock and rock— 
Behold her bowed Madonna face! 
She lifts her baby from its place, 
Pulls down the crumpled, dampened 
frock, 

And never Cleopatra guessed 
The queenliness, the joy, the pride, 
She knows with baby to her breast— 
His chub fists churning either side! 

XXI 

“ The bravest breast faith ever bared 
For brother, country, creed or friend, 
However high the aim or end, 

Was that brave breast a baby shared 
With kicking, fat legs half unfrocked 
The while sweet mother rocked and 
rocked.” 


CANTO V 

I 

As when first blossoms feel first bees, 
As when the squirrel hoists full sail 
And leaps his world of maple trees 
And quirks his saucy, tossy tail; 

As when Vermont’s tall sugar trees 
First feel sweet sap, then don their 
leaves 

In haste—a million Mother Eves; 

As when strange winds stir strong- 
built ships 

Long ice-bound fast in Arctic seas, 

So she, the strong, full woman now, 
Felt new life thrilling breast and brow 
And tingled to her finger tips. 

Her limbs pushed out, outreached her 
head 

As if to say—she nothing said. 

But something of the tender light 
That lit her girl face that first night, 
The time she pulling poppies sat 
The sod and saw the golden sheep 
Safe housed within the hollowed deep, 
Was hers; and how she blushed 
thereat! 

Yet blushing so, still silent sat. 

II 

She would forget his weakness, yet 
Try as she would, could not forget. 
He knew her thought. She raised her 
head 

And searched his soul, and searching 
said: 

“He who would save the world must 
stand 



& &ong of Creation 


Hard by the world with steel-mailed 
hand 

And save by smiting hip and thigh. 
The world needs truth, tall truth and 
grand, 

And keen sword-cuts that thrust to 
kill. 

The man who climbed the windy hill 
To talk, is talking, climbing still, 

And could not help or hurt a fly. 

The stoutest swimmer and most wise 
Swims somewhat with the sweeping 
stream, 

Yet leads, leads unseen as a dream. 
The strong fool breasts the flood and 
dies, 

The weak fool turns his back and 
flies.” 

Ill 

He did not answer, could not dare 
Lift his shamed eyes to her fair face, 
But looked right, left, looked any¬ 
where, 

And mused, mused mutely out of 
place: 

“If yonder creedists may not teach, 
For all their books, and bravely 
preach 

That here, right here, the womb of 
night 

Gave us God's first-born, holy Light, 
Why, pity, nor yet blame them quite; 
Because they know not, cannot read, 
Save as commanded by some creed. 
What eons they may have to wait 
Within their wall, without the gate, 
Nor once dare lift their eyes to look 
Beyond their blinding creed and book, 


527 

We know not, but we surely know 
Yon lava-lifted, star-tipt height 
Is bannered still by that first Light. 
We know this phosphorescent glow, 
At every dip of dripping oar, 

Is but lost bits of Light below. 
Where moves God’s spirit as of yore. 
Aye, here, right here, from out the 
night, 

God spake and said: ‘‘Let there be 
light!” 

IV 

“And dare ask doubting, creed-made 
men 

Why we so surely know and how? 
Why here ‘the waters,’ now as then? 
Why here ‘the waters,’ then as now? 
We know because we read, yet read 
So little that we much must heed. 
We read: ‘God’s spirit moved upon 
The waters’ ere that burst of dawn. 
What waters? Why, ‘The Waters,’ 
these, 

These soundless, silent, sundown seas. 

V 

“The morning of the world was here, 
’Twas here ‘He made dry land 
appear,’ 

Here ‘ Darkness lay upon the deep.’ 
What deep? This deep, the deepest 
deep 

That ever rolled beneath the sun 
When night and day were then as one 
And dreamless day lay fast asleep, 
Rocked in this cradle of the deep.” 



528 


8 gkmg of Creation 


vr 

She would not, could not be denied 
Her thought, her theme but turned 
once more, 

As turns the all-devouring tide 
Against a stubborn unclean shore, 
With lifted face and soul aflame, 

And spake as speaking in God’s 
name—■ 

With face raised to the living God: 
“Hear me! How pitiful the plea 
Of men who plead their temperance, 
Of men who know not one first sense 
Of self-control, yet, fire-shod, 

Storm forth and rage intemperately 
At sins that are but as a breath, 
Compared with their low lives of 
death! 

VII 

“And oh, for prophet’s tongue or pen 
To scourge, not only, and accuse 
The childless mother, but such men 
As know their loves but to abuse! 
Give me the brave, c'^iild-loving Jew, 
The full-sexed Jew of either sex, 

Who loves, brings forth and nothing 
recks 

Of care or cost, as Christians do— 
Dulled souls who will not hear or see 
How Christ once raised his lowly head 
And, all rebuking, gently said, 

The while he took them tenderly, 
‘Let little ones come unto me.’ 

VIII 

“The true Jew lover keeps the Way. 
For clean, serene, and contrite heart 


The bride and bridegroom kneel apart 
Before the bridal bed and pray. 

IX 

“Behold how great the bride’s estate! 
Behold how holy, pure the thought 
That high Jehovah welcomes her 
In partnership, to coin, create 
The fairest form He yet has wrought 
Since Adam’s clay knew breath and 
stir: 

To glory in her daughters, sons; 

To be God’s tabernacle, tent, 

The keeper of the covenant, 

The mother of His little ones! 

X 

‘ ‘ Go forth among this homeless race, 
This landless race that knows no place 
Or name or nation quite its own, 

And see their happy babes at play, 

Or palace, Ghetto, rich or poor, 

As thick as birds about the door 
At morn, some sunny Vermont May, 
Then think of Christ and these alone. 
Yet ye deride, ye jeer, ye jibe, 

To see their plenteous babes; ye say 
‘ Behold the Jew and all his tribe!’ 

XI 

“Yet Solomon upon his throne 
Was not more kingly crowned than 
they 

These Jews, these jeered Jews of to¬ 
day— 

More surely born to lord, to lead, 

To sow the land with Abram’s seed; 




31 £§>ong of Creation 


529 


Because their babes are healthful born 
And welcomed as the welcome morn. 

XII 

“Hear me this prophecy and heed! 
Except we cleanse us, kirk and creed, 
Except we wash us, word and deed, 
The Jew shall rule us, reign the Jew. 
And just because the Jew is true, 

Is true to nature, true to truth, 

Is clean, is chaste, as trustful Ruth 
Who stood amid the alien corn 
In tears that far, dim, doubtful 
morn— 

Who bore us David, Solomon—- 
The Babe, that far, first Christmas 
dawn. 

XIII 

“You shrink, are angered at my 
speech? 

You dare avert your doubtful face 
Because I name this chaste, strange 
race? 

So be it then; there lies the beach, 
And up the beach the ways divide. 

I would not leave the truth untold 
To win the whole world to my side, 
Nor would I spare your selfish pride, 
Your carnal coarseness, lustful lie, 
For that would be to let you die. 
Come! yonder lifts the clear, white 
Light 

For seamen, souls sea-tost at night. 

XIV 

“I see the spiked Agave’s plume, 

The pepsin's plume, acacia's bloom 


Far up beyond tall cocoa trees, 

Tall tamarind and mango brown, 
That gird the pretty, peaceful town. 
That lane leads up, the church looks 
down—• 

There lie the ways, now which of 
these? 

Bear with me, I must dare be true. 
The nation, aye, the Christian race, 
Now fronts its stern Sphynx, face to 
face, 

And I must say, say here to you, 
Whate’er the cost of love, of fame, 
The Christian is a thing of shame—• 
Must say because you prove it true, 
The better Christian is the Jew. 

XV 

‘ * I know you scorn the narrow deeds 
Of men who make their god of 
creeds— 

Yon men as narrow as the miles 
That bank their rare, sweet flower-fed 
isles, 

But come, my Lost Star, come with 
me 

To yon fond church, high-built and 
fair, 

For God is there, as everywhere, 

Or Arctic snow or argent sea.” 

XVI 

He looked far up the mango lane 
Below the wide-boughed banyan tree; 
He looked to her, then looked again, 
As one who tries yet could not see 
But one steep, narrow, upward way: 
“You said two ways, here seems but 
one, 


34 





530 


3 H>on 0 of Creation 


Or set of moon or rise of sun, 

But one way to the perfect day, 

And I will go. And you must stay?” 
She looked far up the steep of stone 
And said: ‘ ‘Aye, go, but not alone.” 

XVII 

The boat’s prow pushed the cocoa 
shore, 

The man spake not, but, leaning o'er, 
Strong-armed, he drew her to his side 
And was not anywise denied. 

He pointed to the failing fire, 

That still tipt lava peak and spire, 
While stars pinned round the robe of 
night; 

’Twas here God said, “Let there be 
Light!” 

XVIII 

A little church, a lava wall, 

A soft light looking gently down, 
The Light of Christ, the second light, 
Where two as one passed up the town. 
She gave her hand, she gave her all, 
And said, as such brave women might, 
With ample right, in hallowed cause: 
‘‘As it in the beginning was, 

So let the man-child be full born 
Of Love, of Light, the Light of Morn!” 

BOOK FOUR 

CANTO I 

I 

And which of all Hawaii’s isles 
Of sandalwood and singing wilds 


Received and housed this maiden 
rare—• 

This bravest, best, since Eve’s des¬ 
pair? 

It matters not; enough to know 
Night-blooming trumpets ever blow 
Love’s tuneful banner to the breeze 
In chorus with the ardent seas; 

That Juno walks her mountain wall 
In peacock plumes the whole year 
through. 

You hear her gaudy lover call 
From dawn till dusk, then see them 
fall 

From out the clouds far, far below, 
And droop and drift slow to and fro—■ 
Dusk rainbows blending with the dew. 

II 

And had he won her? He had wed, 
But now it was that he must woo, 
Must keep alone his widowed bed 
Or sit and woo the whole night 
through. 

He plead. He could not touch her 
hand; 

Her eyes held anger and command 
And memories of a trustful time 
He would have made her muck and 
slime. 

III 

He plead his perfect life, still plead; 
But spurning him she mocking said: 
‘‘You would have trailed me in the 
dust 

In very drunkenness of lust — 

And now you dare to meekly plead 




3 is>ong of Creation 


53i 


Your love of Light, your studious 
youth, 

Your strenuous toil, your quest of 
truth, 

Your perfect life! Indeed! Indeed! 

IV 

“Behold the pale, wan, outworn wife 
Of him who pleads his perfect life! 
Her step is slow, she waits for death; 
Hear, hear her wan babe’s hollow cry! 
He scarce can cry above a breath. 
Poor babe! begotten but to die, 

Or, harder fate, live feebly on, 

The shame of mother, curse of state— 
Half-witted, worthless, jest of fate. 

V 

“ Behold God’s image, fashioned tall 
As heaven, stooping down to crawl 
Upon his belly as a snake, 

Ere yet his sense is well awake, 

Ere yet his force has come, ere yet 
The child-wife knows but to regret. 
And lo! the greatest is the least; 

For man lies lower than the beast. 

VI 

“ Such pity that sweet love should lie 
Prone, strangled in its bed of shame, 
And no man dare to publish why! 
Such pity that in slain Love’s name 
The weak bring forth the weaker, 
bring 

The leper, idiot, anything 
That lawless passion can beget! 
Sweet pitv, pity for them all— 


The child that cries, child-wife that 
dies, 

The weakling that may linger yet 
A feeble day to feebly fall— 

As food for sword or cannon ball, 

For prison wall or charity 
Or fruit of gruesome gallows tree! 

VII 

“ But pity most poor man, blind man, 
Whose passions stoop him to a span. 
Why, man, each well-born man was 
bom 

To dwell in everlasting morn, 

To top the mountain as a tower, 

A thousand years of pride and power; 
To face the four winds with the face 
Of youth until full length he lies— 
Still God-like, even as he dies. 

VIII 

“Could I but teach lorn man to live, 
But teach low man to truly love, 
Could I but teach blind man to see, 
How gladly he would turn to me 
And give great thanks, and ever giv e 
Glad heed, as to some soft-voiced 
dove. 

IX 

“ The burning cities of the plain, 

The high-built harlot, Babylon, 

The bannered mur’ls of Rome un 
done, 

That rose again and fell again 
To ashes and to heaps of dust, 

All died because man lived in vain, 
Because man sold his soul to lust. 



9 iking of Creation 


532 

x 

“And count what crimes have come 
of it! 

I say all sins, or said or writ, 

Lie gathered here in this dark pit 
Of man’s licentious, mad desire, 
Where woman’s form is ruthless 
thrown, 

As on some sacrificial stone, 

And burned as in a living fire, 

To leave but ashes, rue, and ire. 

XI 

“Aye, even crimes as yet unnamed 
Are born of man’s degrading lust. 
The wildest beast man ever tamed, 

Or ever yet has come to know— 

The vilest beast would feel disgust 
Could it but know how low, how low 
God’s image sinks in muck and slime, 
In crimes so deeper than all crime, 

In slime that hath not yet a name, 
And yet man knows no whit of shame! 

XII 

“Poor, weak, mad man, so halt, so 
blind! 

Poor, weak, mad man that must 
carouse 

And prostitute what he should house 
And husband for his coming kind! 
Behold the dumb beasts at glad mom, 
Clean beasts that hold them well in 
hand! 

How nobler thus to lord the land, 
How nobler thus to love your race, 
To house its health and strength and 
grace, 


Than rob the races yet unborn 
And build new Babylon to scorn! 

XIII 

“I say that each man has a right, 
The right the beast has to be born 
Full-flowered, beauteous, free and 
fair 

As wide-winged bird that rides the 
air; 

Not as a babe that cries all night, 
Cries, cries in darkness for such Light 
As man should give it at its birth. 

I say that poor babe has a right, 

The right, at least, of each wild 
beast— 

Aye, red babe, black, white, west or 
east, 

To rise at birth and lord the earth, 
Strong-limbed, long-limbed, robust 
and free 

As supple beast or towering tree. 

XIV 

“God’s pity for the breasts that bear 
A little babe, then banish it 
To stranger hands, to alien care, 

To live or die as chance sees fit. 

Poor, helpless hands, reached any¬ 
where, 

As God gave them to reach and reach, 
With only helplessness in each! 

P001 little hands, pushed here, pushed 
there, 

And all night long for mother’s breast: 
Poor, restless hands that will not rest 
And gather strength to reach out 
strong 



8 S>ong of Creation 


533 


To mother in the rosy morn! 

Nay, nay, they gather scorn for scorn 
And hate for hate the lorn night 
long— 

Poor, dying babe! to reach about 
In blackness, as a thing cast-out! 

XV 

“God’s pity for the thing of lust 
Who bears a frail babe to be thrust 
Forth from her arms to alien thrall, 
As shutting out the light of day, 

As shutting off God’s very breath! 
But thrice God’s pity, let us pray, 
For her who bears no babe at all, 
But, grinning, leads the dance of 
death. 

That sexless, steel-braced breast of 
bone 

Is like to some assassin cell, 

A whited sepulchre of stone, 

A graveyard at the gates of hell, 

A mart where motherhood is sold, 

A house of murders manifold! ’’ 

CANTO II 

I 

He heard; he could but bow his head 
In silence, penitence, and shame, 
Confess the truth of all she said 
Of crimes committed in Love’s name, 
Nor beg the sacred seal of red 
To marriage bond and marriage bed. 

II 

And that was all, aye, that was all 
For days, for days that seemed as 
years. 


He still must woo, put by her fears, 
Make her his friend, let what befall; 
Bide her sweet will and, loving, bide 
Meek dalliance with his maiden bride. 

III 

One night in May, such soulful night 
Of cherry blossoms, birds, such birds 
As burst with song, that sing outright 
Because so glad they cannot keep 
Their song, but sing out in their sleep! 
Such noisy night, a cricket’s night, 

A night of Katydids, of dogs 
That bayed and bayed the vast full 
moon 

In chorus with glad, tuneful frogs— 
With May’s head in the lap of June. 
How hot, how sultry hot the room! 
Their garden tree in perfect bloom 
Gave out fair Nippon’s full perfume— 
The night grew warm and very warm, 
And warm her warm, full-bosomed 
form! 

IV 

How vital, virile, strong with life, 

The world without, the maiden wife! 
How wondrous fair the world, how 
fair 

The maid meshed in her mighty hair! 
The man uprose, caught close a skin, 
A lion’s skin, threw this about 
His great, Herculean, pent-up form, 
Thrust feet into his slippered shoes, 
Then, with a lion’s force and frown 
He strode the wide room up and 
down, 

The skin’s claws flapping at his thews. 
He turned, he caught her suddenly 



534 


& £>ons of Creation 


And instant wrapped her close within; 
Then down the stairs and back and 
out 

Beneath the blossomed Nippon tree— 
Against the tree he pressed her form, 
He was so warm, so very warm— 

He held her close as close could be 
Against the blossomed cherry tree. 

V 

He held with all his might and main— 
Held her so hard he shook the tree, 
Because he trembled mightily 
And shook in his hard, happy pain— 
Because he quivered as a pine 
When tropic storm sweeps up the line, 
As when some swift horse, harnessed 
low, 

Frets hard and bites the bit to go. 
She laughed such low, sweet laugh, 
and said, 

The while she raised her pretty head, 
“ Please, please, be gentle good to me, 
And please don’t hurt the cherry 
tree.” 

VI 

The warm land lay as in a swoon, 

Full length, the happy lap of June— 
A fair bride fainting with delight 
And fond forgetfulness with night. 
How warm the world was and how 
wise 

The world is in its love of life, 

Its hate of harshness, hate of strife.. 
Its love of Eden, peace that lies 
In love-set, leaf-sown Paradise! 


VII 

How generous, how good is night 
To give its length to man’s delight— 
To give its strength from dusk till 
mom, 

To push the planted yellow corn! 

How warm this garden was, how 
warm 

With life, with love in any form! 

Two lowly crickets, clad in black, 
Came shyly forth, shrank sudden 
back— 

Then chirped in chorus, side by side; 
And oh, their narrow world was wide 
As oceans, light their hearts as air, 
And oh, their little world was fair, 
And oh, their little world was warm 
Because each had a lover there, 
Because they loved and didn’t care. 

VIII 

How languid all things with delight, 
With sensuous longings, sweet desire 
That burned as with immortal fire, 
Immortal love that bums to live 
And, lives to burn, to take, to give, 
Create, bring forth, and loving share 
With God the fruitage, flesh or 
flower— 

Just loving, loving, bud or bower, 

Or bee or birdling, small or great, 
Just loving, loving to create. 

With just one caution, just one care— 
That all creation shall be fair. 

IX 

The very garden wall was warm 
With gorgeous sunshine gone away; 


) 



8 £s>ong; of Creation 


Each vine, with eager, reaching arm, 
Clung amorous, tiptoed to kiss, 

With eager lips, the ardent clay 
That held her to its breast of bliss. 

X 

Blown cherry blossoms basking lay, 
A perfect pathway of perfume; 

The tiger lily scarce had room 
For roses bending in a storm 
Of laden sweetness more than sweet. 
The moon leaned o’er the garden wall, 
Then, smiling, tiptoed up her way, 
The while she let one full beam fall, 
Love-laden in the sensuous heat, 

So sweet, so warm, so still withal, 
Love heard pink cherry blossoms fall. 

XI 

A Katydid laid his green thigh 
Against another leaf-green form 
And so began to sing and sigh, 

As if it were his time to die 
From stress and strain of passion’s 
storm— 

He, too, was warm and very warm. 

XII 

A tasseled hammock, silken red, 
Swung, hung hard by, and foot and 
head, 

A blossom-laden cherry tree. 

This famed tree of the Japanese, 
Whatever other trees may be, 

Is held most sacred of all trees: 

Not quite because of its perfume, 

Not all because of rich pink bloom, 


535 

But much because its blossomed 
boughs 

Not only list to lover’s vows, 

But true to lovers, ever true, 

Refuse to let one moonbeam through. 

XIII 

Here, close beneath this Nippon tree, 
The sweetest tree this side Cathay, 
The lover’s tree of mystery, 

Where not a thread of moonlight lay, 
While waves of moonlight laughed 
and played 

At hide and seek the other way, 

He threw her, full length, from his 
arm; 

Full length, then raised her drooping 
head, 

Threw back the skin and, blushing 
red, 

He sought to say—He nothing said! 
He nothing did but blush and blush 
And feel his hot blood rush and rush— 
The very hammock’s fringe was warm 
The while he leaned low from his 
place 

And felt her warm breath in his face. 

XIV 

Then, all abashed, he trembled so 
He clutched the hammock hard and 
fast, 

He held so hard it came, at last, 

To swing, to swing fast to and fro. 
Such awkwardness! He clutched, 
let go, 

Then clutched so hard he shook each 
tree 

Till perfumed silence came to see— 



536 


& H>otig of Creation 


Till fragrance fell upon her hair, 
Such hair, a storm of pink and snow. 
How fair, how fair, how sensuous fair, 
Half hidden in a pink snow-storm; 
And yet how warm, how more than 
warm! 

XV 

How shamed he was! His great heart 
beat 

As beats some signal for retreat. 

This stupid, bravest of brave men, 
Confused, dismayed, hung down his 
head, 

Then turned and helplessly had fled, 
Had she not reached a timid hand 
And, half as pleading, half command 
And half-way laughing, shyly said. 
Prom out her snood of snow and rain, 
“Please shake the Nippon trees 
again!” 

XVI 

He shook the trees; a fragrant shower 
On laughing face and loosened hair— 
A flash of perfume and of flower— 

O, she was fair and very fair! 

Then with a sudden strength he 
plucked 

Hi > red-ripe cherry from the tree, 
Wound ’round the skin and loosely 
tucked 

The folds about her modestly, 

Then on and up with giant stride 
He bore his blushing maiden bride, 

So cherry ripe, so cherry red, 

And laid her in her bridal bed—■ 

Laid perfumed bride, laid flesh and 
flower, 


Half drowning from the fragrant 
shower. 

What snows strewn in her ample hair, 
What low, light laughter everywhere, 
Or cherry tree, or step or stair! 

Just low, soft laughter, cherry bloom, 
Just love and love’s unnamed 
perfume. 

XVII 

He tossed the lion’s skin aside, 

With folded arms leaned o’er his 
bride, 

Turned low the light, then stood full 
length, 

Then strode in all his supple strength 
The room a time, tossed back his hair. 
Then to his bride, swift bent to her, 
And kneeled, as lowliest worshiper. 

XVIII 

And then he threw him by her side, 
His long, strong limbs thrown out full 
length, 

His two fists full of housed-up 
strength. 

What pride, what manly, kingly pride 
That he had conquered, bravely slain 
His baser self, was self again! 

XIX 

He held a hand exceeding small, 

He breathed her perfume, threw her 
hair 

Across her breast with such sweet 
care 

He scarce did touch her form at all. 
Again he rose, strode to and fro, 



& £j>ong of Creation 


537 


Came back and turned the light 
quite low. 

XX 

He bowed his face close to her feet; 
Now he would rise, then would not 
rise; 

He bent, blushed to his very eyes, 
Then sudden pushed aside the sheet 
And kissed her pink and pearly toes. 
Their perfume was the perfect rose 
When perfect summer, passion, heat, 
Points both hands of the clock 
straight up, 

As when we lift and drain the cup, 

As when we lift two hands and pray 
When we have lived our bravest day, 
The horologue of life may stop 
With both hands pointing to the top. 

XXI 

Then suddenly, in strength and pride, 
Full length he threw him at her side 
And caught again her timid hand, 

A bird that had escaped his snare. 
He caught it hard, he held it there, 
He begged her pardon, begged and 
prayed 

She would forgive him, then he laid 
His face to her face and the land 
Was like a fairy land. They lay 
As children well outworn at play. 

XXII 

As children bounding from their bed, 
So rested, radiant, satisfied 
With self and selfishness denied, 

Life seemed some merry roundelay. 


They laughed with early morn, they 
led, 

So full of soul, of strength were they, 
The laughing dance of love all day. 

XXIII 

All day! A month of days, and each 
A song, a sermon, but to teach, 

A holy book to teach the truth 
Of endless, laughing, joyous youth. 
He stood so tall, he stood so strong— 
As one who holds the keys yet keeps 
His treasure housed in shining heaps 
Until all life was as a song. 

XXIV 

At last, one warmest morning, she 
Would scarce let go, said o’er and o’er, 
Held close his hand, held hard the 
door, 

11 Good-by! Come early back to me! ’ ’ 
And then, close up beside, as one 
Might eager seek some stout oak tree 
When storm is sudden threatened, 
she 

Put up her pretty, pouting mouth, 
Half closed her laughing, saucy eyes— 
Such lips, such roses from the south, 
The warm, south side of Paradise!— 

XXV 

“Good-by! Come early back to me!” 
Why, he heard nothing else all day, 
Saw nothing else, knew naught but 
this, 

Their fond, fond, first full-flowered 
kiss, 

Wherein she led the rosy way, 




8 iking of Creation 


538 

As is her right, as it should be. 

He looked his watch hard in its face 
A hundred times, he blushed, he 
smiled, 

Did leave his friends and lightly pace 
The street, half laughing, as a child. 
A million kisses! He’d had one— 
Scant one, his joy had just begun! 

XXVI 

Come early? He was at the gate 
And through the door ere yet the day 
Had kneeled down in the west to pray 
Its vesper prayer, all brimming o’er 
And blushing that he could not wait 
To kiss her just once more, once more, 
Take breath, then kiss her o’er and 
o’er. 

XXVII 

By some sweet chance he found her 
there, 

Close fenced against the winding 
stair, 

With no escape, behind, before. 

She put her lips up as to plead 
She might be spared a little space; 
But there was mischief in her face, 

A world of frolic and of fun, 

And he could run as he could read, 
Aye, he could read as he could rtm. 
And then she pushed her full lips out: 
“You are so strong, you hold so fast! 
You know I tried to guard the door.” 
And then she frowned, began to pout 
And sighed, “ Dear, dear, ’tis not well 
done! ’ ’ 

And then he caught her close, and 
then 


He kissed her once, twice, thrice 
again. 

XXVIII 

Then days and many days of this— 
Ah! man, make merry and carouse 
Upon your way, within your house, 
Hold right there in your manly hand, 
Your happy maid who waits your 
kiss; 

Carouse on kisses and carouse 
In soul, the livelong, thronging day 
When duty tears you well away, 

To know what waits you at the gate, 
And waiting loves and loves to wait. 

XXIX 

And how to kiss? A thousand ways, 
And each way new and each way true, 
And each way true and each way new 
Each day for thrice ten thousand 
days. 

XXX 

How loyal he who loves, how grand! 
He does not tell her overmuch, 

He does not sigh or seek to touch 
Her garments’ hem or lily hand; 

She is his soul, his life, his light, 

His saint by day, his shrine by night. 

XXXI 

True love leads home his maiden bride 
Low-voiced and tender, soft and true: 
He leans to her, to woo, to woo, 

As if she still turned and denied— 



® ^>ong of Creation 


539 


No selfish touch, no sated kiss 
To kill and dig the grave of bliss. 

XXXII 

True love will hold his maiden bride 
As nobles hold inheritance; 

He will not part with one small pence 
Of her fair strength and stately pride, 
But wait serenely at her side, 
Supremely proud, full satisfied. 

XXXIII 

Why, what a glorious thing to view! 
Each morn a maiden at your side, 
The one fair woman, maid and bride, 
With all her sweetness waiting you! 
How wise the miser, more than wise, 
Who knows to count and keep such 
prize! 

XXXIV 

How glad the coming home of him 
Who knows a maiden waits and waits, 
All pulsing, still, within his gates, 

To kiss his goblet’s golden brim; 

How joyous still to woo and woo, 

To read the old new story through! 

XXXV 

Ah me, behold what heritage! 

What light by which to walk, to live 
This age when lights resplendent 

burn, 

This glorious, shining, new horn age. 
When love can bravely give and give 
And get thrice tenfold in return, 

If man will only love and learn! 


XXXVI 

And now soft colors through the house 
Began to surely bud and bloom; 

The wise, the fair, far-seeing spouse 
Began to deck the bridal room; 
Began to build, as builds a bird, 
When first footfalls of spring are 
heard. 

XXXVII 

Some warm-toned colors on the wall, 
Then gorgeous, grass-like carpetings 
vStrown, sown with lily, pink and all 
That nature in sweet springtime 
brings; 

Then curtains from the Orient, 

The silken couch, soft as a kiss, 

The music born of love and blent 
But rarely with such loves as this; 
Mute music, where not hand of man 
Or foot of man is seen or heard, 

Such soft, sweet sound as only can 
In happy blossom time be heard— 

Be heard from happy, nested bird. 

XXXVIII 

And now full twelve o’clock, the noon 
Of faithful, trustful, wedded love, 
The two hands pointing straight 
above, 

This vast midnight, this argent June! 
Their noon was midnight and the 
moon 

Came through the silken sheen and 
laid 

A sword of silver at her side. 

And peace, sweet, perfect peace was 
hers, 





540 


Mitt) Hobe to J>ou attb Pours 


As when nor bird nor blossom stirs, 
And she was now no more afraid; 
The moon surrendered to the maid, 
Drew back and softly turned aside, 
As bridesmaid turning from the bride. 

XXXIX 

All voiceless, noiseless, tenderly 
He pressed beside her, took her 
hand— 


He took her from the leaning 

moon, 

And far beyond the amber sea, 

They sailed the seas of afternoon—• 
The far, still seas, so grandly grand, 
Until they came to babyland. 

And there Creation was and there 
Were giants in the land, once 
more, 

Long-lived and valiant as of yore, 
Yet gentle, patient as His Prayer. 


SIT LUX 


WITH LOVE TO YOU AND YOURS 


“And God said, Let there be light.” 

Rise up! How brief this little day? 
We can but kindle some dim light 
Here in the darkened, wooded way 
Before the gathering of night. 

Come, let us kindle it. The dawn 
Shall find us tenting farther on. 

Come, let us kindle ere we go — 

We know not where; but this we know, 
Night cometh on, and man needs light. 
Come! camp-fire embers, ere we grope 
Yon gray archway of night. 

Life is so brief, so very brief, 

So rounded in, we scarce can see 
The fruitage grown amid the leaf 
And foliage of a single tree 
In all God's garden; yet we know 
That goodly fruits must grow and grow 
Beyond our vision. We but stand 
In some deep hollow of God's hand, 
Hear some sweet bird its little day, 


See cloud and sun a season pass, 

And then, sweet friend, away! 

Clouds pass, they come again; and 
we, 

Are we, then, less than these to God? 

Oh, for the stout faith of a tree 
That drops its small seeds to the sod, 
Safe in the hollow of God's hand, 

And knows that perish from the land 
It shall not! Yea, this much we know, 
That each, as best it can, shall grow 
A s God has fashioned, fair or plain. 

To do its best, or cloud or sun, 

Or in His still, small rain. 

Oh, good to see is faith in God! 

But better far is faith in good: 

The one seems but a sign, a nod, 

The one seems God's own flesh and 
blood. 

How many names of God are sungl 
But good is good in every tongue. 




54i 


Mitlj 3lobe to |9ou anb Pouts 


A nd this the light , the Holy Light 
That leads thro ’ night and night and 
night; 

Thro ’ nights named Death, that lie 
between 

The days named Life, the ladder round 
Unto the Infinite Unseen. 

‘ ‘ In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth; the earth was 
without form and void and darkness 
lay upon the deep and the spirit of 
God moved upon the face of the 
waters/' 

PART FIRST 

I 

What is there in a dear dove’s eyes, 
Or voice of mated melodies, 

That tells us ever of blue skies 
And cease of deluge on Love’s seas? 
The dove looked down on Jordan’s 
tide 

Well pleased with Christ the Cruci¬ 
fied; 

The dove was hewed in Karnak stone 
Before fair Jordan’s banks were 
known. 

The dove has such a patient look, 

I read rest in her pretty eyes 
As in the Holy Book. 

I think if I should love some day— 
And may I die when dear Love dies— 
I’d sail brave San Francisco’s Bay 
And seek to see some sea-dove’s eyes: 
To see her in her air-built nest, 

Her wide, warm, restful wings at rest; 
To see her rounded neck reach out, 


Her eyes lean lovingly about; 

And seeing this as love can see, 

I then should know, and surely know, 
That love sailed on with me. 

II 

See once this boundless bay and 
live, 

See once this beauteous bay and love, 
See once this warm, bright bay and 
give 

God thanks for olive branch and dove. 
Then plunge headlong yon sapphire 
sea 

And sail and sail the world with 
me. . . . 

Some isles, drowned in the drowning 
sun, 

Ten thousand sea-doves voiced as 
one; 

Lo! love’s wings furled and wings 
unfurled; 

Who sees not this warm, half-world 
sea, 

Sees not, knows not the world. 

How knocks he at the Golden Gate, 
This lord of waters, strong and bold, 
And fearful-voiced and fierce as fate, 
And hoar and old, as Time is old; 

Yet young as when God’s finger lay 
Against Night’s forehead that first 
day, 

And drove vast Darkness forth, and 
rent 

The waters from the firmament. 

Hear how he knocks and raves and 
loves! 

He woos us through the Golden Gate 
With all his soft sea-doves. 




542 


Hit!) ILobe to Pou anb |9ours 


Now on and on, up, down, and on, 
The sea is oily grooves; the air 
Is as your bride’s sweet breath at 
dawn 

When all your ardent youth is there. 
And oh, the rest! and oh, the room! 
And oh, the sensuous sea perfume! 
Yon new moon peering as we passed 
Has scarce escaped our topmost mast. 
A porpoise, wheeling restlessly, 

Quick draws a bright, black, dripping 
blade, 

Then sheathes it in the sea. 

Vast, half-world, wondrous sea of 
ours! 

Dread, unknown deep of all sea deeps! 
What fragrance from thy strange 
sea-flowers 

Deep-gardened where God's silence 
keeps! 

Thy song is silence, and thy face 
Is God’s face in His holy place. 

Thy billows swing sweet censer foam, 
Where stars hang His cathedral’s 
dome. 

Such blue above, below such blue! 
These burly winds so tall, they can 
Scarce walk between the two. 

Such room of sea! Such room of 
sky! 

Such room to draw a soul-full breath! 
Such room to live! Such room to die! 
Such room to roam in after death! 
White room, with sapphire room set 
’round, 

And still beyond His room profound; 
Such room-bound boundlessness o’er- 
head 


As never has been writ or said 
Or seen, save by the favored few, 
Where kings of thought play chess 
with stars 

Across their board of blue. 


Ill 

The proud ship wrapped her in the 
red 

That hung from heaven, then the 
gray, 

The soft dove-gray that shrouds the 
dead 

And prostrate form of perfumed day: 
Some noisy, pigmy creatures kept 
The deck a spell, then, leaning, crept 
Apart in silence and distrust, 

Then down below in deep disgust. 

An albatross,—a shadow cross 
Hung at the head of buried day,— 

At foot the albatross. 

Then came a warm, soft, sultry 
breath—• 

A weary wind that wanted rest; 

A breath as from some house of death 
With flowers heaped; as from the 
breast 

Of such sweet princess as had slept 
Some thousand years embalmed, and 
kept, 

In fearful Karnak’s tomb-hewn hill, 
Her perfume and spiced sweetness 
still,— 

Such breath as bees droop down to 
meet, 

And creep along lest it may melt 
Their honey-laden feet. 



543 


Mttf) llobe to |9ou anti Pours 


The captain’s trumpet smote the 
air! 

Swift men, like spiders up a thread, 
Swept suddenly. Then masts were 
bare 

As when tall poplars’ leaves are shed, 
And ropes were clamped and stays 
were clewed. 

’T was as when wrestlers, iron-thewed 
Gird tight their loins, take full breath, 
And set firm face, as fronting death. 
Three small brown birds, or gray, so 
small, 

So ghostly still and swift they passed, 
They scarce seemed birds at all. 

Then quick, keen saber-cuts, like 
ice; 

Then sudden hail, like battle-shot, 
Then two last men crept down like 
mice, 

And man, poor, pigmy man, was not. 
The great ship shivered, as with 
cold— 

An instant staggered back, then bold 
As Theodosia, to her waist 
In waters, stood erect and faced 
Black thunder; and she kept her way 
And laughed red lightning from her 
face 

As on some gala day. 

The black sea-horses rode in row; 
Their white manes tossing to the 
night 

But made the blackness blacker grow 
From flashing, phosphorescent light. 
And how like hurdle steeds they leapt! 
The low moon burst; the black troop 
swept 

Right through her hollow, on and on. 


A wave-wet simitar was drawn, 
Flashed twice, flashed thrice trium¬ 
phantly, 

But still the steeds dashed on, dashed 
on, 

And drowned her in the sea. 

What headlong winds that lost 
their way 

At sea, and wailed out for the shore! 
How shook the orient doors of day 
With all this mad, tumultuous roar! 
Black clouds, shot through with stars 
of red; 

Strange stars, storm-born and fire- 
fed; 

Lost stars that came, and went, and 
came; 

Such stars as never yet had name. 
The far sea-lions on their isles 
Upheaved their huge heads terrified, 
And moaned a thousand miles. 

What fearful battle-field! What 

space 

For light and darkness, flame and 
flood! 

Lo! Light and Darkness, face to face, 
In battle harness battling stood! 

And how the surged sea burst upon 
The granite gates of Oregon! 

It tore, it tossed the seething spume, 
And wailed for room! and room! and 
room! 

It shook the crag-built eaglets’ nest 
Until they screamed from out their 
clouds, 

Then rocked them back to rest. 

How fiercely reckless raged the 
war! 



544 


IHttf) TL otic to $)ou anti Hours 


Then suddenly no ghost of light, 

Or even glint of storm-born star. 
Just night, and black, torn bits of 
night; 

Just night, and midnight’s middle 
noon, 

With all mad elements in tune; 

Just night, and that continuous roar 
Of wind, wind, night, and nothing 
more. 

Then all the hollows of the main 
Sank down so deep, it almost seemed 
The seas were hewn in twain. 

How deep the hollows of this deep! 
How high, how trembling high the 
crest! 

Ten thousand miles of surge and 
sweep 

And length and breadth of billow’s 
breast! 

Up! up, as if against the skies! 

Down! down, as if no more to rise! 
The creaking wallow in the trough, 

As if the world was breaking off. 

The pigmies in their trough down 
there! 

Deep in their trough they tried to 
pray— 

Td hide from God in prayer. 

Then boomed Alaska’s great, first 
gun 

In battling ice and rattling hail; 

Then Indus came, four winds in one! 
Then came Japan in counter mail 
Of mad cross winds; and Waterloo 
Was but as some babe’s tale unto. 
The typhoon spun his toy in play 
And whistled as a glad boy may 
To see his top spin at his feet: 


The captain on his bridge in ice, 

His sailors mailed in sleet. 

What unchained, unnamed, noises, 
space! 

What shoreless, boundless, rounded 
reach 

Of room was here! Fit field, fit place 
For three fierce emperors, where each 
Came armed with elements that make 
Or unmake seas and lands, that shake 
The heavens’ roof, that freeze or 
burn 

The seas as they may please to turn. 
And such black silence! Not a sound 
Save whistling of that mad, glad boy 
To see his top spin round. 

Then swift, like some sulked Ajax, 
burst 

Thewed Thunder from his battle- 
tent; 

As if in pent-up, vengeful thirst 
For blood, the elements of Earth were 
rent, 

And sheeted crimson lay a wedge 
Of blood below black Thunder’s edge. 
A pause. The typhoon turned, up- 
wheeled, 

And wrestled Death till heaven reeled. 
Then Lightning reached a fiery rod, 
And on Death’s fearful forehead 
wrote 

The autograph of God. 

IV 

God’s name and face—what need 
of more? 

Mom came: calm came; and holy 
light, 


/ 




545 


Mtti) Hobe to Hou anti J^ourg 


And warm, sweet weather, leaning 
o’er, 

Laid perfumes on the tomb of night. 
The three wee birds came dimly back 
And housed about the mast in black, 
And all the tranquil sense of morn 
Seemed as Dakota’s fields of corn, 
Save that some great soul-breaking 
sigh 

Now sank the proud ship out of sight, 
Now sent her to the sky. 

V 

One strong, strange man had kept 
the deck— 

One silent, seeing man, who knew 
The pulse of Nature, and could reck 
Her deepest heart-beats through and 
through. 

He knew the night, he loved the night. 
When elements went forth to fight 
His soul went with them without fear 
To hear God’s voice, so few will hear. 
The swine had plunged them in the 
sea, 

The swine down there, but up on 
deck 

The captain, God and he. 

VI 

And oh, such sea-shell tints of light 
High o’er those wide sea-doors of 
dawn! 

Sail, sail the world for that one sight, 
Then satisfied, let time begone. 

The ship rose up to meet that light, 
Bright candles, tipped like tasseled 
com, 

The holy virgin, maiden morn, 


Arrayed in woven gold and white. 
Put by the harp—hush minstrelsy; 
Nor bard or bird has yet been heard 
To sing this scene, this sea. 

VII 

Such light! such liquid, molten 
light! 

Such mantling, healthful, heartful 
morn! 

Such morning bom of such mad night! 
Such night as never had been born! 
The man caught in his breath, his 
face 

Was lifted up to light and space; 

His hand dashed o’er his brow, as 
when 

Deep thoughts submerge the souls of 
men; 

And then he bowed, bowed mute, 
appalled 

At memory of scenes, such scenes 
As this swift mom recalled. 

He sought the ship’s prow, as men 
seek 

The utmost limit for their feet, 

To lean, look forth, to list nor speak, 
Nor turn aside, nor yet retreat 
One inch from this far vantage- 
ground, 

Till he had pierced the dread pro¬ 
found 

And proved it false. And yet he knew 
Deep in his earth that all was true; 

So like it was to that first dawn 
When God had said, “Let there be 
light,’’ 

And thus he spake right on: 


3S 



546 fiitf) Hobe to 

“My soul was born ere light was 
born, 

When blackness was, as this black 
night. 

And then that morn, as this sweet 
morn! 

That sudden light, as this swift light! 
I had forgotten. Now, I know 
The travail of the world, the low, 
Dull creatures in the sea of slime 
That time committed unto time, 

As great men plant oaks patiently, 
Then turn in silence unto dust 
And wait the coming tree. 

“That long, lorn blackness, seams 
of flame, 

Volcanoes bursting from the slime, 
Huge, shapeless monsters without 
name 

Slow shaping in the loom of time; 

Slow weaving as a weaver weaves; 

So like as when some good man leaves 
His acorns to the centuries 
And waits the stout ancestral trees. 
But ah, so piteous, memory 
Reels back, as sickened, from that 
scene— 

It breaks the heart of me! 

“Volcanoes crying out for light! 
The very slime found tongues of fire! 
Huge monsters climbing in their 
might 

O’er submerged monsters in the mire 
That heaved their slimy mouths, and 
cried 

And cried for light, and crying, died. 
How all that wailing through the air 
But seems as some unbroken prayer. 


Jfou anti Pours 

One ceaseless prayer that long lorn 
night 

The world lay in the loom of time 
And waited so for light! 

“And I, amid those monsters there, 
A grade above, or still below? 

Nay, Time has never time to care; 
And I can scarcely dare to know. 

I but. remember that one prayer; 
Ten thousand wide mouths in the air, 
Ten thousand monsters in their 
might, 

All eyeless, looking up for light. 

We prayed, we prayed as never man, 
By sea or land, by deed or word, 

Has prayed since light began. 

“Great sea-cows laid their fins 
upon 

Low-floating isles, as good priests lay 
Two holy hands, at early dawn, 
Upon the altar cloth to pray. 
x\ye, ever so, with lifted head, 

Poor, slime-bom creatures and slime- 
bred, 

We prayed. Our sealed-up eyes of 
night 

All lifting, lifting up for light. 

And I have paused to wonder, when 
This world will pray as we then 
prayed, 

What God may not give men! 

“Hist! Once I saw,—What was I 
then? 

Ah, dim and devious the light 
Comes back, but I was not of men. 
And it is only such black night 
As this, that was of war and strife 
1 Of elements, can wake that life, 



OTttf) Hobe to ^ou ant' Hours 


547 


That life in death, that black and 
cold 

And blind and loveless life of old. 

But hear! I saw—heed this and 
learn 

How old, how holy old is Love, 
However Time may turn: 

“I saw, I saw, or somehow felt, 

A sea-cow mother nurse her young. 

I saw, and with thanksgiving knelt, 
To see her head, low, loving, hung 
Above her nursling. Then the light, 
The lovelight from those eyes of 
night! 

I say to you’t was lovelight then 
That first lit up the eyes of men. 

I say to you lovelight was born 
Ere God laid hand to clay of man, 
Or ever that first mom. 

“What though a monster slew her 
so, 

The while she bowed and nursed her 
young? 

She leaned her head to take the blow, 
And dying, still the closer clung— 
And dying gave her life to save 
The helpless life she erstwhile gave, 
And so sank back below the slime, 

A tom shred in the loom of time. 
The one thing more I needs must say, 
That monster slew her and her young; 
But Love he could not slay.” 

PART SECOND 

I 

The man stood silent, peering past 
His utmost verge of memory. 

What lay beyond, beyond that vast 


Bewildering darkness and dead sea 
Of noisome vapors and dread night? 
No light! not any sense of light 
Beyond that life when Love was bom 
On that first, far, dim rim of morn: 
No light beyond that beast that clung 
In darkness by the light of love 
And died to save her young. 

And yet we know life must have 
been 

Before that dark, dread life of pain; 
Life germs, love germs of gentle men, 
So small, so still; as still, small rain. 
But whence this life, this living soul, 
This germ that grows a godlike whole? 
T can but think of that sixth day 
When God first set His hand to clay, 
And did in His own image plan 
A perfect form, a manly form, 

A comely, godlike man. 

II 

Did soul germs grown down in the 
deeps, 

The while God’s Spirit moved upon 
The waters? High-set Lima keeps 
A rose-path, like a ray of dawn; 

And simple, pious peons say 
Sweet Santa Rosa passed that way; 
And so, because of her fair fame 
And saintly face, these roses came. 
Shall we not say, ere that first morn, 
Where God moved, garmented in 
mists, 

Some sweet soul germs were bom? 

III 

The strange, strong man still kept 
the prow; 



548 


MttI) llobe to ^ou anti Hours 


He saw, still saw before light was, 
The dawn of love, the huge sea-cow, 
The living slime, love’s deathless 
laws. 

He knew love lived, lived ere a blade 
Of grass, or ever light was made; 

And love was in him, of him, as 
The light was on the sea of glass. 

It made his heart great, and he grew 
To look on God all unabashed; 

To look lost eons through. 

IV 

Illuming love! what talisman! 
That Word which makes the world 
go ’round! 

That Word which bore worlds in its 
plan! 

That Word which was the Word 
profound! 

That Word which was the great First 
Cause, 

Before light was, before sight was! 

I would not barter love for gold 
Enough to fill a tall ship’s hold; 
Nay, not for great Victoria’s worth— 
So great the sun sets not upon 
In all his round of earth. 

I would not barter love for all 
The silver spilling from the moon; 

I would not barter love at all 
Though you should coin each after¬ 
noon 

Of gold for centuries to be, 

And count the coin all down as free 
As conqueror fresh home from wars,— 
Coin sunset bars, coin heaven-bom 
stars, 

Coin all below, coin all above, 


Count all down at my feet, yet I— 
I would not barter love. 

V 

The lone man started, stood as 
when 

A strong man hears, yet does not 
hear. 

He raised his hand, let fall, and then 
Quick arched his hand above his ear 
And leaned a little; yet no sound 
Broke through the vast, serene pro¬ 
found. 

Man’s soul first knew sbme telephone 
In sense and language all its own. 
The tall man heard, yet did not hear; 
He saw, and yet he did not see 
A fair face near and dear. 

For there, half hiding, crouching 
there 

Against the capstan, coils on coils 
Of rope, some snow still in her hair, 
Like Time, too eager for his spoils, 
Was such fair face raised to his face 
As only dream of dreams give place; 
Such shyness, boldness, sea-shell 
tint, 

Such book as only God may print, 
Such tender, timid, holy look 
Of startled love and trust and hope,— 
A gold-bound storybook. 

And while the great ship rose and 
fell, 

Or rocked or rounded with the sea, 
He saw,—a little thing to tell, 

An idle, silly thing, maybe,— 

Where her right arm was bent to 
clasp 



549 


fflttf) Xobe to J|ou anb J^ourg 


Hei robe’s fold in some closer clasp, 
A little isle of melting snow 
That round about and to and fro 
And up and down kept eddying. 

It told so much, that idle isle, 

Yet such a little thing. 

It told she, too, was of a race 
Born ere the baby stars were born; 
She, too, familiar with God’s face, 
Knew folly but to shun and scorn; 
She, too, all night had sat to read 
By heaven’s light, to hear, to heed 
The awful voice of God, to grow 
In thought, to see, to feel, to know 
The harmony of elements 
That tear and toss the sea of seas 
To foam-built battle-tents. 

He saw that drifting isle of snow, 
As some lorn miner sees bright gold 
Seamed deep in quartz, and joys to 
know 

That here lies hidden wealth untold. 
And now his head was lifted strong, 
As glad men lift the head in song. 

He knew she, too, had spent the night 
As he, in all that wild delight 
Of tuneful elements; she, too, 

He knew, was of that olden time 
Ere oldest stars were new. 

VI 

Her soul’s ancestral book bore date 
Beyond the peopling of the moon, 
Beyond the day when Saturn sate 
In royal cincture, and the boon 
Of light and life bestowed on stars 
And satellites; ere martial Mars 
Waxed red with battle rage and shook 


The porch of heaven with a look; 
Ere polar ice-shafts propt gaunt earth 
And slime was but the womb of time, 
That knew not yet of birth. 

VII 

To be what thou wouldst truly be, 
Be bravely, truly, what thou art. 

The acorn houses the huge tree, 

And patient, silent bears its part, 
And bides the miracle of time. 

For miracle, and more sublime 
It is than all that has been writ, 

To see the great oak grow from it. 
But thus the soul grows, grows the 
heart,— 

To be what thou wouldst truly be. 
Be truly what thou art. 

To be what thou wouldst truly be, 
Be true. God’s finger sets each seed, 
Or when or where we may not see; 
But God shall nourish to its need 
Each one, if but it dares be true; 

To do what it is set to do. 

Thy proud soul’s heraldry? ’T is writ 
In every gentle action; it 
Can never be contested. Time 
Dates thy brave soul’s ancestral book 
From thy first deed sublime. 

VIII 

Wouldst learn to know one little 
flower, 

Its perfume, perfect form and hue? 
Yea, wouldst thou have one perfect 
hour 

Of all the years that come to you? 
Then grow as God hath planted, grow 




550 


Witf) Hobe to ^ou anb Hours 


A lordly oak or daisy low, 

As He hath set His garden; be 
Just what thou art, or grass or tree. 
Thy treasures up in heaven laid 
Await thy sure ascending soul, 

Life after life,—be not afraid! 

IX 

Wouldst know the secrets of the 
soil? 

Wouldst have Earth bare her breast 
to you? 

Wouldst know the sweet rest of hard 
toil? 

Be true, be true, be ever true! 

Ah me, these self-made cuts of wrong 
That hew men down! Behold the 
strong 

And comely Adam bound with lies 
And banished from his paradise! 

The serpent on his belly still 

Eats dirt through all his piteous days, 

Do penance as he will. 

Poor, heel-bruised, prostrate, tortu¬ 
ous snake! 

What soul crawls here upon the 
ground? 

God willed his soul at birth to take 
The round of beauteous things, the 
round 

Of earth, the round of boundless skies. 
It lied, and lo! how low it lies! 

What quick, sleek tongue to lie with 
here! 

Wast thou a broker but last year? 
Wast known to fame, wast rich and 
proud? 

Didst live a lie that thou mightst die 
With pockets in thy shroud? 


X 

Be still, be pitiful! that soul 
May yet be rich in peace as thine. 
Yea, as the shining ages roll 
That rich man’s soul may rise and 
shine 

Beyond Orion; yet may reel 
The Pleiades with belts of steel 
That compass commerce in their 
reach; 

May learn and learn, and learning 
teach, 

The while his soul grows grandly old, 
How nobler far to share a crust 
Than hoard car-loads of gold! 

XI 


Oh, but to know; to surely know 
How strangely beautiful is light! 

How just one gleam of light will glow 
And grow more beautifully bright 
Than all the gold that ever lay 
Below the wide-arched Milky Way! 
“Let there be light!” and lo! the 
burst 

Of light in answer to the first 
Command of high Jehovah’s voice! 
Let there be light for man to-night, 
That all men may rejoice. 

XII 

The little isle of ice and snow 
That in her gathered garment lay, 
And dashed and drifted to and fro 
Unhindered of her, went its way. 
The while the warm winds of Japan 
Were with them, and the silent man 



55i 


ffliitj) Hobe to ffou anti Hour# 


Stood by her, saying, hearing naught, 
Yet seeing, noting all; as one 
Sees not, yet all day sees the sun. 
He knew her silence, heeded well 
Her dignity of idle hands 
In this deep, tranquil spell. 

XIII 

The true soul surely knows its own, 
Deep down in this man’s heart he 
knew, 

Somehow, somewhere along the zone 
Of time, his soul should come unto 
Its safe seaport, some pleasant land 
Of rest where she should reach a hand. 
He had not questioned God. His care 
Was to be worthy, fit to share 
The glory, peace, and perfect rest, 
Come how or when or where it comes, 
As God in time sees best. 

Her face reached forward, not to 
him, 

But forward, upward, as for light; 
For light that lay a silver rim 
Of sea-lit whiteness more than white. 
The vast full morning poured and 
spilled 

Its splendor down, and filled and filled 
And overfilled the heaped-up sea 
With silver molten suddenly. 

The night lay trenched in her meshed 
hair; 

The tint of sea-shells left the sea 
To make her more than fair. 

What massed, what matchless 
midnight hair! 

Her wide, sweet, sultry, drooping 
mouth, 


As droops some flower when the air 
Blows odors from the ardent South— 
That Sapphic, sensate, bended bow 
Of deadly archery; as though 
Love’s legions fortressed there and 
sent 

Red arrows from his bow fell bent. 
Such apples! such sweet fruit con¬ 
cealed 

Of perfect womanhood make more 
Sweet pain than if revealed. 

XIV 

How good a thing it is to house 
Thy full heart treasures to that day 
When thou shalt take her, and 
carouse 

Thenceforth with her for aye and 
aye; 

How good a thing to give the store 
That thus the thousand years or 
more, 

Poor, hungered, holy worshiper, 

You kept for her, and only her! 

How well with all thy wealth to wait 
Or year, or thousand thousand years, 
Her coming at love’s gate! 

XV 

The winds pressed warm from 
warm Japan 

Upon her pulsing womanhood. 

They fanned such fires in the man 
His face shone glory where he stood. 
In Persia’s rose-fields, I have heard, 
There sings a sad, sweet, one-winged 
bird; 

Sings ever sad in lonely round 
Until his one-winged mate is found; 




552 


©Bttf) Hobe to l?ou attb Pouts 


And then, side laid to side, they rise 
So swift, so strong, they even dare 
The doorway of the skies. 

XVI 

How rich was he! how richer she! 
Such treasures up in heaven laid, 
Where moth and rust may never be, 
Nor thieves break in, or make afraid. 
Such treasures, where the tranquil 
soul 

Walks space, nor limit nor control 
Can know, but journeys on and on 
Beyond the golden gates of dawn; 
Beyond the outmost round of Mars; 
Where God’s foot rocks the cradle of 
His new-born baby stars. 

XVII 

As one who comes upon a street, 

Or sudden turn in pleasant path, 

As one who suddenly may meet 
Some scene, some sound, some sense 
that hath 

A memory of olden days, 

Of days that long have gone their 
ways, 

She caught her breath, caught quick 
and fast 

Her breath, as if her whole life passed 
Before, and pendant to and fro 
Swung in the air before her eyes; 

And oh, her heart beat so! 

How her heart beat! Three thou¬ 
sand years 

Of weary, waiting womanhood, 

Of folded hands, of falling tears, 


Of lone soul-wending through dark 
wood; 

But now at last to meet once more 
Upon the bright, all-shining shore 
Of earth, in life’s resplendent dawn, 
And he so fair to look upon! 

Tall Phaon and the world aglow! 

Tall Phaon, favored of the gods, 

And oh, her heart beat so! 

Her heart beat so, no word she 
spake; 

She pressed her palms, she leaned her 
face,— 

Her heart beat so, its beating brake 
The cord that held her robe in place 
About her wondrous, rounded throat, 
And in the warm winds let it float 
And fall upon her soft, round arm, 
So warm it made the morning warm. 
Then pink and pearl forsook her 
cheek, 

And, “Phaon, I am Sappho, I—•” 
Nay, nay, she did not speak. 

And was this Sappho, she who sang 
When mournful Jeremiah wept? 
When harps, where weeping willows 
hang, 

Hung mute and all their music kept? 
Such witchery of song as drew 
The war-like world to hear her sing, 
As moons draw mad seas following. 
Aye, this was Sappho; Lesbos hill 
Had all been hers, and Tempi’s vale, 
And song sweet as to kill. 

Her dark Greek eyes turned to the 
sea; 

Lo, Phaon’s ferry as of old! 

He kept his boat’s prow still, and he 




(SJSitf) Ho be to Pou anti Pours 


553 


Was stately, comely, strong, and bold 
As when he ferried gods, and drew 
Immortal youth from one who knew 
His scorn of gold. The Lesbian shore 
Lay yonder, and the rocky roar 
Against the promontory told, 

Told and retold her tale of love 
That never can grow old. 

Three thousand years! yet love 
was young 

And fair as when Atolis knew 
Her glory, and her great soul strung 
The harp that still sweeps ages 
through. 

Ionic dance or Doric war, 

Or purpled dove or dulcet car, 

Or unyoked dove or close-yoked dove, 
What meant it all but love and love? 
And at the naming of Love’s name 
She raised her eyes, and lo! her doves! 
Just of old they came. 

PART THIRD 

I 

And they sailed on; the sea-doves 
sailed, 

And Love sailed with them. And 
there lay 

Such peace as never had prevailed 
On earth since dear Love’s natal day. 
Great black-backed whales blew bows 
in clouds, 

Wee sea-birds flitted through the 
shrouds. 

A wide-winged, amber albatross 
Blew by, and bore his shadow cross, 
And seemed to hang it on the mast, 


The while he followed far behind, 
The great ship flew so fast. 

She questioned her if Phaon knew, 
If he could dream, or halfway guess 
How she had tracked the ages through 
And trained her soul to gentleness 
Through many lives, through every 
part 

To make her worthy his great heart. 
Would Phaon turn and fly her still, 
With that fierce, proud, imperious 
will, 

And scorn her still, and still despise? 
She shuddered, turned aside her face, 
And lo, her sea-dove’s eyes! 

II 

Then days of rest and restful 
nights; 

And love kept tryst as true love will, 
The prow their trysting-place. De¬ 
lights 

Of silence, simply sitting still,— 

Of asking nothing, saying naught; 
For all that they had ever sought 
Sailed with them; words or deeds had 
been 

Impertinence, a selfish sin. 

And oh, to know how sweet a thing 
Is silence on those restful seas 
When Love’s dove folds her wing! 

The great sea slept. In vast re¬ 
pose 

His pillowed head half-hidden lay, 
Half-drowned in dread Alaskan snows 
That stretch to where no man can 
say. 

His huge arms tossed to left, to right, 




554 


©Slttf) Hobe to Pou ant) Pours 


Where black woods, banked like bits 
of night, 

As sleeping giants toss their arms 
At night about their fearful forms. 

A slim canoe, a night-bird’s call, 
Some gray sea-doves, just these and 
Love, 

And Love indeed was all! 

III 

Far, far away such cradled Isles 
As Jason dreamed and Argos sought 
Surge up from endless watery miles! 
And thou, the pale high priest of 
thought, 

The everlasting throned king 
Of fair Samoa! Shall I bring 
Sweet sandal-wood? Or shall I lay 
Rich wreaths of California’s bay 
From sobbing maidens? Stevenson, 
Sleep well. Thy work is done; well 
done! 

So bravely, bravely done! 

And Molokia’s lord of love 
And tenderness, and piteous tears 
For stricken man! Co forth, O dove! 
With olive branch, and still the fears 
Of those he meekly died to save. 
They shall not perish. From that 
grave 

Shall grow such healing! such as He 
Gave stricken men by Galilee. 

Great ocean cradle, cradle, keep 
These two, the chosen of thy heart, 
Rocked in sweet, baby sleep. 

IV 

Fair land of flowers, land of flame, 
Of sun-born seas, of sea-born clime, 


Of clouds low shepherded and tame 
As white pet sheep at shearing time, 
Of great, white, generous high-born 
rain, 

Of rainbows builded not in vain— 

Of rainbows builded for the feet 
Of love to pass dry-shod and fleet 
From isle to isle, when smell of musk 
’Mid twilight is, and one lone star 
Sits in the brow of dusk. 

Oh, dying, sad-voiced, sea-born 
maid! 

And plundered, dying, still sing on. 
Thy breast against the thorn is laid— 
Sing on, sing on, sweet dying swan. 
How pitiful! And so despoiled 
By those you fed, for whom you 
toiled! 

Aloha! Hail you, and farewell, 

Far echo of some lost sea-shell! 

Some song that lost its way at sea, 
Some sea-lost notes of nature, lost, 
That crying, came to me. 

Dusk maid, adieu! One sea-shell 
less! 

Sa i sea-shell silenced and forgot. 

O Rachel in the wilderness, 

Wail on! Your children they are 
not. 

And they who took them, they who 
laid 

Hard hand, shall they not feel afraid? 
Shall they who in the name of God 
Robbed and enslaved, escape His 
rod? 

Give me some after-world afar 
From these hard men, for well I know 
Hell must be where they are. 



Hitt!) Hobe to ffou anb Hours 


555 


v 

Lo! suddenly the lone ship burst 
Upon an uncompleted world, 

A world so dazzling white, man durst 
Not face the flashing search-light 
hurled 

From heaven’s snow-built battle¬ 
ments 

And high-heaved camp of cloud- 
wreathed tents. 

And boom! boom! boom! from sea or 
shore 

Came one long, deep, continuous roar, 
As if God wrought; as if the days, 
The first six pregnant mother morns, 
Had not quite gone their way. 

What word is fitting but the Word 
Here in this vast world-fashioning? 
What tongue here name the nameless 
Lord? 

What hand lay hand on anything? 
Come, let us coin new words of might 
And massiveness to name this light, 
This largeness, largeness everywhere! 
White rivers hanging in the air, 
Ice-tied through all eternity! 

Nay, peace! It were profane to say: 
We dare but hear and see. 

Be silent! Hear the strokes re¬ 
sound ! 

’T is God’s hand rounding down the 
earth. 

Take off thy shoes, ’t is holy ground, 
Behold! a continent has birth! 

The skies bow down, Madonna’s blue 
Enfolds the sea in sapphire. You 
May lift, a little spell, your eyes 


And feast them on the ice-propped 
skies, 

And feast but for a little space: 

Then let thy face fall grateful down 
And let thy soul say grace. 

VI 

At anchor so, and all night through, 
The two before God’s temple kept. 

He spake: “I know yon peak; I knew 
A deep ice-cavern there. I slept 
With hairy men, or monsters slew, 

Or led down misty seas my crew 
Of cruel savages and slaves, 

And slew who dared the distant 
waves, 

And once a strange, strong ship—and 
she , 

I bore her to yon cave of ice,— 

And Love companioned me. 

VII 

“Two scenes of all scenes from the 
first 

Have come to me on this great sea: 
The one when light from heaven 
burst, 

The one when sweet Love came to 
me. 

And of the two, or best or worst, 

I ever hold this second first, 

Bear with me. Yonder citadel 
Of ice tells all my tongue can tell: 
My thirst for love, my pain, my 
pride, 

My soul’s warm youth the while she 
lived, 

Its old age when she died. 




556 


Jfflitf) Hobe to 19ou anb JJourS 


“I know not if she loved or no. 

I only asked to serve and love; 

To love and serve, and ever so 
My love grew as grows light above,— 
Grew from gray dawn to gold midday, 
And swept the wide world in its 
sway. 

The stars came down, so close they 
came, 

I called them, named them with her 
name, 

The kind moon came,—came once so 
near, 

That in the hollow of her arm 
I leaned my lifted spear. 

“And yet, somehow, for all the 
stars, 

And all the silver of the moon, 

She looked from out her icy bars 
As longing for some sultry noon; 

As longing for jome warmer kind, 
Some far south sunland left behind. 
Then I went down to sea. I sailed 
Thro’ seas where monstrous beasts 
prevailed, 

Such slimy, shapeless, hungered 
things! 

Red griffins, wide-winged, bat-like 
wings, 

Black griffins, black or fire-fed, 

That ate my fever-stricken men 
Ere yet they were quite dead. 

“I could not find her love for her, 
Or land, or fit thing for her touch, 
And I came back, sad worshiper, 

And watched and longed and loved 
so much! 

I watched huge monsters climb and 
pass 


Reflected in great walls, like glass; 
Dark, draggled, hairy, fearful forms 
Upblown by ever-battling storms, 
And streaming still with slime and 
spray; 

So huge from out their sultry seas, 
Like storm-torn islands they. 

“Then even these she ceased to 
note, 

She ceased at last to look on me, 

But, baring to the sun her throat, 
She looked and looked incessantly 
Away against the south, away 
Against the sun the livelong day. 

At last I saw her watch the swan 
Surge tow'rd the north, surge on and 
on. 

I saw her smile, her first, faint smile; 
Then burst a new-born thought, and 

I, 

I nursed that all the while. 

VIII 

“I somehow dreamed, or guessed, 
or knew, 

That somewhere in the dear earth’s 
heart 

Was warmth and tenderness and 
true 

Delight, and all love’s nobler part. 

I tried to think, aye, thought and 
thought; 

In all the strange fruits that I brought 
For her delight I could but find 
The sweetness deep within the rind. 
All beasts, all birds, some better part 
Of central being deepest housed; 

And earth must have a heart. 



iHttf) Hobe to |9ou anb f9ourg 


'‘I watched the wide-winged birds 
that blew 

Continually against the bleak 
And ice-built north, and surely knew 
The long, lorn croak, the reaching 
beak, 

Led not to ruin evermore; 

For they came back came swooping 
o’er 

Each spring, with clouds of younger 
ones, 

So dense, they dimmed the summer 
suns. 

And thus I knew somehow, some¬ 
where, 

Beyond earth’s ice-built, star-tipt 
peaks 

They found a softer air. 

“And too, I heard strange stories, 
held 

In memories of my hairy men, 

Vague, dim traditions, dim with eld, 
Of other lands and ages when 
Nor ices were, nor anything; 

But ever one warm, restful spring 
Of radiant sunlight: stories told 
By dauntless men of giant mold, 

Who kept their cavern’s icy mouth 
Ice-locked, and hungered where they 
sat, 

With sad eyes tow’rd the south: 

“Tales of a time ere hate began, 

Of herds of reindeer, wild beasts 
tamed, 

When man walked forth in love with 
man, 

Walked naked, and was not ashamed; 
Of how a brother beast he slew, 

Then night, and all sad sorrows knew; 


557 

How tame beasts were no longer 
tame; 

How God drew His great sword of 
flame 

And drove man naked to the snow, 
Till, pitying, He made of skins 
A coat, and clothed him so. 

“And, true or not true, still the 
same, 

I saw continually at night 
That far, bright, flashing sword of 
flame, 

Misnamed the Borealis light; 

I saw my men, in coats of skin 
As God had clothed them, felt the 
sin 

And suffering of that first death 
Each day in every icy breath. 

Then why should I still disbelieve 
These tales of fairer lands than mine, 
And let my lady grieve? 

IX 

“Yea, I would find that land for 
her! 

Then dogs, and sleds, and swift 
reindeer; 

Huge, hairy men, all mailed in fur, 
Who knew not yet the name of fear, 
Nor knew fatigue, nor aught that 
ever 

To this day has balked endeavor. 

And we swept forth, while wide, swift 
wings 

Still sought the Pole in endless strings. 

I left her sitting looking south, 

Still leaning, looking to the sun,— 
My kisses on her mouth! 



558 


mm Hofoe to J9ou anir Pouts 


x 

"Far toward the north, so tall, so 
far, 

One tallest ice shaft starward stood—• 
Stood as if ’twere itself a star, 

Scarce fallen from its sisterhood. 
Tip-top the glowing apex there 
Upreared a huge white polar bear; 
He pushed his swart nose up and 
out, 

Then walked the North Star round 
about, 

Below the Great Bear of the main, 
The upper main, and as if chained, 
Chained with a star-linked chain. 

XI 

“And we pushed on, up, on, and 
on, 

Until, as in the world of dreams, 

We found the very doors of dawn 
With warm sun bursting through the 
seams. 

We brake them through, then down, 
far down, 

Until, as in some park-set town, 

We found lost Eden. Very rare 
The fruit, and all the perfumed air 
So sweet, we sat us down to feed 
And rest, without a thought or care, 
Or ever other need. 

“For all earth’s pretty birds were 
here; 

And women fair, and very fair; 

Sweet song was in the atmosphere, 
Nor effort was, nor noise, nor care. 

As cocoons from their silken house 
Wing forth and in the sun carouse, 


My men let fall their housings and 
Passed on and on, far down the 
land 

Of purple grapes and poppy bloom. 
Such warm, sweet land, such peaceful 
land! 

Sweet peace and sweet perfume! 

“And I pushed down ere I returned 
To climb the cold world’s walls of 
snow, 

And saw where earth’s heart beat 
and burned, 

An hundred sultry leagues below; 
Saw deep seas set with deep-sea isles 
Of waving verdure; miles on miles 
Of rising sea-birds with their broods, 
In all their noisy, happy moods! 

Aye, then I knew earth has a heart, 
That Nature wastes nor space or 
place, 

But husbands every part. 

XII 

“My reindeer fretted: I turned 
back 

For her, the heart of me, my soul! 
Ah, then, how swift, how white my 
track! 

All Paradise beneath the Pole 
Were but a mockery till she 
Should share its dreamful sweets with 
me.... 

I know not well what next befell, 

Save that white heaven grew black 
hell. 

She sat with sad face to the south, 
Still sat, sat still; but she was dead— 
My kisses on her mouth. 



JUitfj Hobe to ^ou anb Hours 


559 


XIII 

“What else to do but droop and 
die? 

But dying, how my poor soul yearned 
To fly as swift south birds may fly—• 
To pass that way her eyes had turned, 
The dear days she had sat with me, 
And search and search eternity! 
And, do you know, I surely know 
That God has given us to go 
The way we will in life or death— 
To go, to grow, or good or ill, 

As one may draw a breath? ” 

PART FOURTH 

I 

Nay, turn not to the past for light; 
Nay, teach not Pagan tale forsooth! 
Behind lie heathen gods and night, 
Before lifts high, white holy truth. 
Sweet Orpheus looked back, and lo, 
Hell met his eyes and endless woe! 
Lot’s wife looked back, and for this 
fell 

To something even worse than hell. 
Let us have faith, sail, seek and find 
The new world and the new world’s 
ways; 

Blind Homer led the blind! 

II 

Come, let us kindle Faith in light! 
Yon eagle climbing to the sun 
Keeps not the straightest course in 
sight, 

But room and reach of wing and run 
Of rounding circle all are his, 


Till he at last bathes in the light 
Of worlds that look far down on this 
Arena’s battle for the right. 

The stoutest sail that braves the 
breeze, 

The bravest battle ship that rides, 
Rides rounding up the seas. 

Come, let us kindle faith in man! 
What though yon eagle, where he 
swings, 

May moult a feather in God’s plan 
Of broader, stronger, better wings! 
Why, let the moulted feathers lie 
As thick as leaves upon the lawn: 
These be but proof we cleave the sky 
And still round on and on and on. 
Fear not for moulting feathers; nay, 
But rather fear when all seems fair, 
And care is far away. 

Come, let us kindle faith in God! 
He made, He kept, He still can keep. 
The storm obeys His burning rod, 
The storm brought Christ to walk the 
deep. 

Trust God to round His own at will; 
Trust God to keep His own for aye— 
Or strife or strike, or well or ill; 

An eagle climbing up the sky— 

A meteor down from heaven hurled— 
Trust God to round, reform, or rock 
His new-born baby world. 

Ill 

How full the great, full-hearted seas 
That lave high, white Alaska’s feet! 
How densely green the dense green 
trees! 



56 o 


ttitl) Xobe to J9ou atib Pour# 


How sweet the smell of wood! how 
sweet! 

What sense of high, white newness 
where 

This new world breathes the new, blue 
air 

That never breath of man or breath 
Of mortal thing considereth! 

And O, that Borealis light! 

The angel with his flaming sword 
And never sense of night! 

IV 

Are these the walls of Paradise— 
Yon peaks the gates man may not 
pass? 

Lo, everlasting silence lies 
Along their gleaming ways of glass! 
Just silence and that sword of flame; 
Just silence and Jehovah’s name, 
Where all is new, unnamed, and 
white! 

Come, let us read where angels write— 
“In the beginning God”—aye, these 
The waters where God’s Spirit 
moved; 

These, these, the very seas! 

Just one deep, wave-washed char¬ 
iot wheel: 

Such sunset as that far first day! 

An unsheathed sword of flame and 
steel; 

Then battle flashes; then dismay, 
And mad confusion of all hues 
That earth and heaven could infuse, 
Till all hues softly fused and blent 
In orange worlds of wonderment: 
Then dying day, in kingly ire, 


Struck back with one last blow, and 
smote 

The world with molten fire. 

So fell Alaska, proudly, dead 
In battle harness where he fought. 
But falling, still high o’er his head 
Far flashed his sword in crimson 
wrought, 

Till came his kingly foeman, Dusk, 

In garments moist with smell of 
musk. 

The bent moon moved down heaven’s 
steeps 

Low-bowed, as when a woman weeps; 
Bowed low, half-veiled in widowhood; 
Then stars tiptoed the peaks in gold 
And burned brown sandal-wood. 

Fit death of Day; fit burial rite 
Of white Alaska! Let us lay 
This leaflet ’mid the musky night 
Upon his tomb. Come, come away; 
For Phaon talks and Sappho turns 
To where the light of heaven bums 
To love light, and she leans to hear 
With something more than mortal ear 
The while the ship has pushed her 
prow 

So close against the fir-set shore 
You breathe the spicy bough. 

V 

Some red men by the low white 

beach; 

Camp fires, belts of dense, black fir: 
She leans as if she still would reach 
To him the very soul of her. 

The red flames cast a silhouette 
Against the snow, above the jet 



Mitfj Hobe to 

Black, narrow night of fragrant fir, 
Behold, what ardent worshiper! 
Lim’d out against a glacier peak, 
With strong arms crossed upon his 
breast; 

The while she feels him speak: 

“How glad was I to walk with 
Death 

Far down his dim, still, trackless 
lands, 

Where wind nor wave nor any breath 
Broke ripples o’er the somber sands. 

I walked with Death as eagerly 
As ever I had sailed this sea. 

Then on and on I searched, I sought, 
Yet all my seeking came to naught. 

I sailed by pleasant, peopled isles 
Of song and summer time; I sailed 
Ten thousand weary miles! 

“ I heard a song! She had been sad, 
So sad and ever drooping she; 

How could she, then, in song be glad 
The while I searched? It could not 
be. 

And yet that voice! so like it seemed, 

I questioned if I heard or dreamed. 
She smiled on me. This made me 
scorn 

My very self; for I was born 
To loyalty. I would be true 
Unto my love, my soul, my self, 
Whatever death might do. 

“ I fled her face, her proud, fair face, 
Her songs that won a world to her. 
Had she sat songless in her place, 

Sat with no single worshiper, 

Sat with bowed head, sad-voiced, 
alone, 

36 


Hou anb Pours 561 

I might have known! I might have 
known! 

But how could I, the savage, know 
This sun, contrasting with that snow, 
Would waken her great soul to 
song 

That still thiills all the ages through? 
I blindly did such wrong! 

“Again I fled. I ferried gods; 

Yet, pining still, I came to pine 
Where drowsy Lesbos Bacchus nods 
And drowned my soul in Cyprian 
wine. 

Drowned! drowned my poor, sad soul 
so deep, 

I sank to where damned serpents 
creep! 

Then slowly upward; round by round 
I toiled, regained this vantage-ground 
And now, at last, I claim mine own, 
As some long-banished king comes 
back 

To battle for his throne." 

VI 

I do not say that thus he spake 
By word of mouth, by human speech; 
The sun in one swift flash will take 
A photograph of space and reach 
The realm of stars. A soul like his 
Is like unto the sun in this: 

Her soul the plate placed to receive 
The swflft impressions, to believe, 

To doubt no more than you might 
doubt 

The •wondrous midnight world of 
stars 

That dawn has blotted out. 




562 


ifflitj) Hobe to J9ou anti Pouts 


VII 

And Phaon loved her; he who knew 
The North Pole and the South, who 
named 

The stars for her, strode forth and 
slew 

Black, hairy monsters no man tamed; 
And all before fair Greece was born, 
Or Lesbos yet knew night or morn. 
No marvel that she knew him when 
He came, the chiefest of all men. 

No marvel that she loved and died, 
And left such marbled bits of song—■ 
Of broken Phidian pride. 

VIII 

Oh, but for that one further sense 
For man that man shall yet possess! 
'That sense that puts aside pretense 
And sees the truth, that scorns to 
guess 

Or grope, or play at blindman’s 
buff, 

But knows rough diamonds in the 
rough! 

Oh, well for man when man shall see, 
As see he must man’s destiny! 

Oh, well when man shall know his 
mate, 

One-winged and desolate, lives on 
And bravely dares to wait! 

IX 

Full morning found them, and the 
land 

Received them, and the chapel gray; 
Some Indian huts on either hand, 

A smell of pine, a flash of spray,— 


White, frozen rivers of the sky 
Far up the glacial steeps hard by. 
Far ice-peaks flashed with sudden 
light, 

As if they would illume the rite, 

As if they knew his story well, 

As if they knew that form, that face, 
And all that Time could tell. 

X 

They passed dusk chieftains two by 

two, 

With totem gods and stroud and shell 
They slowly passed, and passing 
through, 

He bought of all—he knew them 
well. 

And one, a bent old man and blind, 
He put his hands about, and kind 
And strange words whispered in his 
ear, 

So soft, his dull soul could but hear. 
And hear he surely did, for he, 

With full hands, lifted up his face 
And smiled right pleasantly. 

How near, how far, how fierce, how 
tame! 

The polar bear, the olive branch; 

The dying exile, Christ’s sweet name— 
Vast silence! then the avalanche! 
How much this little church to them— 
Alaska and Jerusalem! 

The pair passed in, the silent pair 
Fell down before the altar there, 

The Greek before the gray Greek 
cross, 

And Phaon at her side at last, 

For all her weary loss. 





Rlttf) 3Lobe to Hou anb Hours 


The bearded priest came, and he 
laid 

His two hands forth and slowly spake 
Strange, solemn words, and slowly 
prayed, 

And blessed them there, for Jesus’ 
sake. 

Then slowly they arose and passed, 
Still silent, voiceless to the last. 
They passed: her eyes were to his 
eyes, 

But his were lifted to the skies, 

As looking, looking, that lorn night, 
Before the birth of God’s first-born 
As praying still for Light. 

XI 

So Phaon knew and Sappho knew 
Nor night nor sadness any more. . . . 
How new the old world, ever new, 
When white Love walks the shining 
shore! 

They found their long-lost Eden, 
found 

Her old, sweet songs; such dulcet 
sound 

Of harmonies as soothe the ear 
When Love and only Love can hear. 
They found lost Eden; lilies lay 
Along their path, whichever land 
They joumeyd from that day. 

XII 

They never died. Great loves live 
on. 

You need not die and dare the skies 
In forms that poor creeds hinge upon 
To pass the gates of Paradise. 

I know not if that sword of flame 


563 

Still lights the North, and leads the 
same 

As when he passed the gates of old. 

I know not if they braved the bold, 
Defiant walls that fronted them 
Where awful Saint Elias broods, 
Wrapped in God’s garment-hem. 

I only know they found the lost, 
The long-lost Eden, found all fair 
Where naught had been but hail and 
frost; 

As Love finds Eden anywhere. 

And wouldst thou, too, live on and on? 
Then walk with Nature till the dawn. 
Aye, make thy soul worth saving— 
save 

Thy soul from darkness and the 
grave. 

Love God not overmuch, but love 
God’s world which He called very 
good; 

Then lo, Love’s white sea-dove! 

XIII 

I know not where lies Eden-land; 

I only know’t is like unto 

God’s kingdom, ever right at hand— 

Ever right here in reach of you. 

Put forth thy hand, or great or small, 
In storm or sun, by sea or wood, 
And say, as God hath said of all, 
Behold, it all is very good. 

I know not where lies Eden-land; 

I only say receive the dove: 

I say put forth thy hand. 



564 


Sfot'os 


ADIOS 


A nd here, sweet friend , I go my way 
Alone, as I have lived, alone 
A little way, a brief half day, 

And then, the restful, white milestone. 
I know not surely where or when, 

But surely know we meet again, 

As surely know we love anew 
In grander life the good and true. 

But why assume to guide or guess? 
Behold our stars are shepherded! 

Madonna, Shepherdess. 

Enough to know that I and you 
Shall breathe together there as here 
Some dearer, sweeter atmosphere: 
Shall walk high, wider ways above 
Our petty selves, shall lean to lead 
Man up and up in thought and deed. . . 
Dear sold, sweet friend, I love you, love 
The love that led you patient through 
This wilderness of words in quest 
Of strange wild flowers from my West, 
But here, dear heart, Adieu. 

I 

Yon great chained sea-ship chafes to 
be 

Once more unleashed without the Gate 
On proud Balboa’s boundless sea, 
And I chafe with her, for I hate 
The rust of rest, the dull repose, 

The fawning breath of changeful foes, 
Whose blame through all my bitter 
days 

I have endured; spare me their praise! 
I go, full hearted, grateful, glad 
Of strength from dear good mother 
earth; 

And yet am I full sad. 


II 

Could I but teach man to believe—• 
Could I but make small men to grow, 
To break frail spider-webs that weave 
About their thews and bind them low; 
Could I but sing one song and slay 
Grim Doubt; I then could go my way 
In tranquil silence, glad, serene, 

And satisfied, from off the scene. 
But ah, this disbelief, this doubt, 
This doubt of God, this doubt of 
good,— 

The damned spot will not out! 

III 

Grew once a rose within my room 
Of perfect hue, of perfect health; 

Of such perfection and perfume, 

It filled my poor house with its wealth. 
Then came the pessimist who knew 
Not good or grace, but overthrew 
My rose, and in the broken pot 
Nosed fast for slugs within the rot. 
He found, found with exulting pride, 
A baby butterfly it was; 

T + he while my rose-tree died. 


IV 

Yea, he did hurt me. Joy in this. 
Receive great joy at last to know, 
Since pain is all your world of bliss, 
That ye did, hounding, hurt me 
so! 




Ubios 


565 


But mute as bayed stag on his steeps, 
Who keeps his haunts, and, bleeding, 
keeps 

His breast turned, watching where 
they come, 

Kept I, defiant, and as dumb. 

But comfort ye; your work was done 
With devils’ cunning, like the mole 
That lets the life-sap run. 

And my revenge? My vengeance 
is 

That I have made one rugged spot 
The fairer; that I fashioned this 
While envy, hate, and falsehood 
shot 

Rank poison; that I leave to those 
Who shot, for arrows, each a rose; 
Aye, labyrinths of rose and wold, 
Acacias garmented in gold, 

Bright fountains, where birds come 
to drink; 

Such clouds of cunning pretty birds, 
And tame as you can think. 

1 

V 

Come here when I am far away 
Fond lovers of this lovely land, 

And sit quite still and do not say, 
Turn right or left, or lift a hand, 

But sit beneath my kindly trees 
And gaze far out yon sea of seas:— 
These trees, these very stones, could 
tell 

How long I loved them, and how 
well— 

And maybe I shall come and sit 
Beside you; sit so silently 
You will not reck of it. 


VI 

The old desire of far, new lands, 
The thirst to learn, to still front 
storms, 

To bend my knees, to lift my hands 
To God in all His thousand forms— 
These lure and lead as pleasantly 
As old songs sung anew at sea. 

But, storied lands or stormy deeps, 

I will my ashes to my steeps— 

I will my steeps, green cross, red 
rose, 

To those who love the beautiful— 
Come, learn to be of those. 


VII 

The sun has draped his couch in 
red; 

Night takes the warm world in his 
arms 

And turns to their espousal bed 
To breathe the perfume of her charms: 
The great sea calls, and I descend 
As to the call of some strong friend. 

I go, not hating any man, 

But loving Earth as only can 
A lover suckled at her breast 
Of beauty from his babyhood, 

And roam to truly rest. 

VIII 

God is not far; man is not far 
From Heaven’s porch, where paeans 
roll. 



566 


3bto£ 


Man yet shall speak from star to star 
In silent language of the soul; 

Yon star-strewn skies be but a town, 
With angels passing up and down. 

"I leave my peace with you.” Lo! 
these 


His seven wounds, the Pleiades 
Pierce Heaven’s porch. But, resting 
there, 

The new moon rocks the Child Christ 
in 

Her silver rocking-chair. 


j 



NOTES 




\ 


y 




NOTES 


(Notes by Miller are marked M. The Bear Edition is referred to as B. 
Obvious typographical errors are silently corrected, but Miller’s grammar 
has not been altered.) 


From Joaquin, Et Al. 


In B. I, 174, Miller says that Joaquin , Et Al. was first published in 1868: 
but the title-page and copyright are dated 1869. 

“Is It Worth While?’’—Preserved in part, as “Down into the Dust’’ in 
Songs of the Sun-Lands , 1873, and reprinted in part, in B., I, 172, with the 
original title but revised and with this comment: “I give the following place 
. . . not only because it is right in spirit but because it shows how old, how 
very old I was as a boy, and sad at heart over the cruelties of man to man.” 

Zanara. An altered version appears as “Sleep that was not sleep” in 
Songs of the Sun-Lands, but not in B. 

“Dirge.” For the much altered version in Songs of the Sun-Lands and in 
B., see “Dead in the Sierras.” 

“Ultime.”—Five stanzas are preserved in B., I, 174. 

Songs of the Sierras 

“To Maud.”—“My Little Daughter in Oregon.” In B., this dedication 
follows “The Arizonian.” 

All the poems of this section are in the edition of 1871 but they are here 
printed according to the text and order of B., except the dedication, which in 
1871 preceded “Arizonian” at the beginning of the book. 

“Walker in Nicaragua.”—“General William Walker, citizen, soldier, presi¬ 
dent and historian of Nicaragua, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1824, 
of Scotch ancestry, and educated at a university in Paris, after which he 
studied international law in London. He voyaged to California in 1850 and, 
after some experience in the gold mines and gathering many bold men about 
him he became editor of the San Francisco Herald and began to publish his 
plans to his followers. He made two bold attempts to establish a settlement in 
Baja California, but was twice driven out by the Mexicans. Returning to 
California he raised a company and sailed for Nicaragua. War had been raging 
there for a long time between the aristocrats, or Church party, of Granada, and 

569 


570 j^otes; 

the Democrats of Leon, to the North. Americans as well as British were fight¬ 
ing on both sides. 


“After fearful fighting at Granada, Walker, shut up in Rivas, surrendered to 
the United States and was taken to New Orleans for trial, his men going whither 
they would or could. 

“He now published an elaborate book, giving the wealth and wonderful re¬ 
sources of the country and at the same time, giving every detail of the war, 
under the title of “ The War in Nicaragua.” It is written in the third person, 
like the books of the first Cassar, and is as conservative and exact as an 
equation. 

“He was tried in New Orleans and, on his vindication, raised in that city 
and Mobile a force far exceeding that w T ith which he had left California and 
with which he had fought his way to the presidency; but his Californians were 
dead or scattered and these untried men of enervating cities knew little of arms 
and were, comparatively, worthless. 

“Walker's last expedition was closely watched by British gunboats. He took 
refuge up a river on the coast of Honduras and soon found himself cut off on 
all sides. He led his men up the coast and down, facing fifty to one, as at Rivas 
and Granada, but they soon became disheartened and he surrendered to the 
captain of a British man-of-war, who at once turned him over to Honduras, 
when he was promptly tried at the drum’s head, condemned and shot.”—M. 

In the first edition, the poem opened at what is now the ninth division, 
as follows: 


He was a brick: let this be said 
Above my brave, dishonored dead. 

The eight divisions which now open the poem were obviously added in 
an attempt to “ whitewash ” Walker and to square the record with Miller’s 
later “pacifistic” professions. 

“ The Tale of the Alcalde.”—“ Twice revised and published before its first 
appearance in London, and has been cut and revised at least half a dozen times 
since; and is still incomplete and very unsatisfying to the writer, except as to 
the descriptions. It was my first attempt at telling a story in verse, that was 
thought worth preserving. It was begun when but a lad, camped with our 
horses for a month’s rest in an old adobe ruin on the Reading Ranch, with the 
gleaming snows of Mount Shasta standing out above the clouds against the 
cold, blue north. The story is not new, having been written or at least lived 


i^toteg 


57i 


in every mountain land of intermixed races that has been: a young outlaw in 
love with a wild mountain beauty, his battles for her people against his own; 
the capture, prison, brave release, flight, return, and revenge—a sort of modi¬ 
fied Mazeppa.’ M. In Joaquin , Et Al. this poem was called “Benoni”; 
it was one of the chief sources of Joaquin Miller’s “legend.” 

“Arizonian.”—At its first appearance spelled “Arazonian.” 

“The Last Taschastas.”—“‘Tc’hastas’ a name given to King John by the 
French, a corruption of chaste; for he was a pure, just man and a great war¬ 
rior. He was the king of the Rouge (Red) River Indians of Oregon, and his 
story is glorious with great deeds in defense of his people. When finally over¬ 
powered, he and his son Moses were put on a ship at Port Orford and sent to 
Fort Alcatraz in the Golden Gate. In mid-ocean, these two Indians, in irons, 
rose up, and, after a bloody fight, took the ship. But one had lost a leg, the 
other an arm, and so they finally had to let loose the crew and soldiers tumbled 
into the hold, and surrender themselves again; for the ship was driving helpless 
in a storm towards the rocks. The king died a prisoner, but his son escaped and 
never again surrendered. He lives alone near Yreka and is known as ‘Prince 
Peg-leg Moses.’ A daughter of the late Senator Nesmith sends me a picture, 
taken in 1896 of the king’s devoted daughter, Princess Mary, who followed his 
fortunes in all his battles. She must be nearly one hundred years old. I 
remember her as an old woman full forty years ago, tall as a soldier, and most 
terrible in council. I have tried to picture her and her people as I once saw 
them in a midnight camp before the breaking out of the war; also their actions 
and utterances, so like some of the old Israelite councils and prophecies. This 
was the leading piece in my very first book, “Specimens,” published in Oregon 
in 1867-8 if I remember rightly.”—M. 

“Joaquin Murietta.—Called “Joaquin” in the Portland book and “Cali¬ 
fornia” in Songs of the Sierras , 1871. 

“Even So.”—This poetical treatment of Miller’s relations with “Minnie 
Myrtle” was much worked over after 1871. In the prelude, the original last 
line is better than the revised form— 

“White storms are in the feathered fir.” 

• “ Myrrh. ”—In Songs of the Sierras , 1871, dated, ‘‘ Blue Mountains, Oregon, 

1870. ” 

“ Burns. ”—Originally, this and the following poem appeared as “ Burns and 
Byron. ” “ In my pilgrimage to places sacred to the memory of Burns, I found 
none equal in interest to Ayr, the Doon, and their environs.”—M. 

“Byron.”—“ The day before my departure for Europe last summer, a small 
party sailed out to the beautiful sea-front of Saucelito, lying in the great bay of 


572 


J?OtC)S 


San Francisco, forever green in its crown of California laurel and there the 
fairest hands of the youngest and fairest city of the New World wove a wreath 
of bay for the tomb of Byron. I brought it over the Rocky Mountains, and the 
seas, and placed it above the dust of the soldier-poet, as desired."—M. (Note 
in edition of 1871). 

“Kit Carson’s Ride.”—“Two of the Archbishop’s [Trench’s] beautiful 
daughters had been riding in the park with the Earl of Aberdeen. ‘ And did you 
gallop?’ asked Browning of the younger beauty. ‘I galloped, Joyce galloped, 
we galloped all three. ’ Then we all laughed at the happy and hearty retort, and 
Browning, beating the time and clang of galloping horses’ feet on the table with 
his fingers, repeated the exact measure in Latin from Virgil; and the Archbishop 
laughingly took it up, in Latin, where he left off. I then told Browning I had 
an order—it was my first—for a poem from the Oxford Magazine , and would 
like to borrow the measure and spirit of his ‘Good News’ for a prairie fire 
on the plains, driving buffalo and all other life before it into the river.”—M. 
In his note (in B.), Miller says this poem “was not in any of my first four 
books, and so has not been rightly revised till now.” This is apparently a 
slip; for it is in the American edition of Songs of the Sierras, 1871, though it 
is there much longer, and the girl sinks in the fire. Something of colloquial 
vigor has been lost in the revision. Compare the original opening line: 

“Run? Now you bet you; I rather guess so!” 

Fallen Leaves 

This series appeared in Songs of the Sun-Lands, 1873, but Miller discarded 
the group, preserving only (in B.) “Thomas of Tigre,” “ Yosemite” (originally 
“In the Yosemite), and “Dead in the Sierras.” 

“Thomas of Tigre.”—“This was a brave old boyhood friend in the Mount 
Shasta days. You will find him there as the Prince in my Life Among the 
Modocs. . . . This man, Prince Thomas, now of Leon, Nicaragua, was a 
great favorite and my best friend, in one sense for years in Europe. He had 
passed the most adventurous life conceivable, at one time having been king of 
an island.”—M. 

The edition of 1873 has a fifth stanza as follows: 

“Answer me from out the West. 

I am weary, stricken now; 

Thou art strong and I would rest: 

Reach a hand with lifted brow,— 

King of Tigre, where art thou?” 


JHotes 


573 


“Dead in the Sierras.”—Originally “Dirge,” see p. 54. 

A Memory of Santa Barbara.”—Not included in the English edition of 
1873* I n its place, the English edition has an inferior eleven-line piece entitled 
44 L°> Here,’ beginning, “ I think 'twere better books were not.” 

By the Sun-Down Seas 

By the Sun-Down Seas.”—This was originally a continuous Oregonian 
poem, under the same title, opening the volume Songs of the Sun-Lands , 1873, 
which was dedicated to the Rossettis. Miller broke it up into its constituent 
parts, as here piinted, and appended them (in B) to Songs of the Sierras, except 
for two fragments, “St. Paul’s” and “Westminster Abbey,” which he inserted 
in his section of “ Miscellaneous Lines.” See now pp. 409 and 410. 

“Ove-Agua: Oregon.”—‘In 1858, while teaching a sort of primer school, 
below Fort \ ancouver, during a vacation at Columbia College, the forerunner 
of Oregon University, I met Father Broulette, the head of the Catholic School 
at Vancouver. This learned and kindly priest helped me in my Latin, when 1 
went to him on Saturdays, and twice took me rowing in an Indian’s canoe far 
up the great Oregon River to hear the waters; to hear the waters dashing down 
out of the clouds from the melting snows of Mt. Hood. And he quoted Bryant’s 
poem and laid great stress on the words: ‘Where rolls the Oregon and hears 
no sound save its own dashing.’ ”—M. 

“To Rest at Last.”—“These final verses are peculiarly descriptive of the 
home I have built here on the Hights for my declining years; although 
written and published in London . .in 1873. • •' • The only departure 
from my dear first plan is in finding my ideal home by the glorious gate of San 
Francisco instead of the somber fir-set sea bank far to the north, ‘Where Rolls 
the Oregon.’”—M. 


Songs of the Sun-Lands 

“Songs of the Sun-Lands. ’ ’—The volume thus entitled in B. includes the fol¬ 
lowing poems; “The Sea of Fire,” “The Ship in the Desert,” “Isles of the 
Amazons,” “An Indian Summer,” “From Sea to Sea,” “A Song of the South,” 
“Resurgo San Francisco,” and a notice in prose of “The Last San Francisco 
Fire.” The original “Songs of the Sun-Lands,” 1873, contained only three of 
the foregoing poems: “Isles of the Amazons,” “From Sea to Sea,” and “In the 
Indian Summer,” the rest of the volume being made up of three sequences: 
By the Sun-Down Seas, Olive Leaves, and Fallen Leaves. From the present 
section I have removed the two pieces on San Francisco; and have added 
“ Dawn in San Diego,” as in its present form a late poem and more in harmony 


574 


iSotes 


with the style and mood of this group than with Songs of the Sierras , to which 
Miller appended it in B. I have also restored "Isles of the Amazons” to its 
leading place, and have tried to arrange the other pieces in chronological order. 

“ Isles of the Amazons.”—" I do not like this, although I have cut it up and 
cut it down, and -worked it over and over more than anything else. I had seen 
this vast and indescribable country, but not absorbed it; and that, most likely, 
is the reason it seems artificial and foolish, with knights and other things that 
I know nothing about. The only thing that I like in it is the water. I can 
handle water, and water is water the world over. But had it not been for the 
water and some of the wild tangles and jungles the whole thing would, ere this, 
have gone where the biggest half went long since. It was written in San 
Francisco, and was published at the same time in the Overland there and 
the Gentleman's Magazine in London. It w r as written at the instance of the 
Emperor, who translated it and to the last was brave and courtly enough to 
insist that it was good work. I had hoped to induce people to pour out of 
crowded London and better their fortunes there; for there is great wealth 
far, far up the Amazon. Aye, what exultant pride swelled my heart one 
happy day in Rome when Partridge, our minister to Brazil, gave me that 
message of thanks from the good Emperor, with a request to make his home 
my own while he lived.”—M. 

"An Indian Summer.”—“I wrote, or rather lived, this bit of color at Cleve¬ 
land, Ohio, giving it the entire autumn of gold. The prime purpose was to get 
the atmosphere of an Ohio Saint Martin’s summer, but it grew to be a very 
serious matter. Yet we must, in some sort at least, live what we write if what 
we write is to live.”—M. 

"From Sea to Sea.”—"This was written during my first railroad ride from 
New York to San Francisco, at a time when this was the greatest ride on the 
globe and parties came to California in great crowds to look upon the sundown 
seas.”—M. 

"The Ship in the Desert.”—Miller’s note in B. gives the date of the first 
book publication of this poem as 1876; but the title-page gives 1875 and his 
dedicatory preface, which he quotes without the date, is dated in the original 
edition, 1874. "The body of this poem was first published in the Atlantic 
Monthly [July, 1874]. The purpose of it was the same as induced the Isles of 
the Amazons, but the work is better because more true and nearer to the 
heart. Bear in mind it was done when the heart of the continent was indeed a 
desert, or at least a wilderness. . . . How much or how little it may have 
had to do in bringing Europe this way to seek for the lost Edens, and to 
make the desert blossom as the rose, matters nothing now; but, ‘He hath 
brought many captives home to Rome whose ransom did the generous (sic) 
coffers fill.’”—M: 


Jlotes 


575 


“The Sea of Fire.”—This poem was one of the two published as Songs of 
the Mexican Seas, Boston, 1887. But it had previously formed part of the long 
and unshapely verse romance, The Baroness of New York, 1877, which Miller 
consigned to oblivion. In its original form it seems to have been associated with 
his revulsion against city life after his sojourn in the eastern cities. Hence his 
note in B.—“The real poet would rather house with a half savage and live on a 
sixpence in some mountain village, as did Byron, than feast off the board of 
Madame Leo Hunter in a city. Nor is Washington a better place for work with 
soul or heart in it. Madame Leo Hunter is there also, persistent, numerous, 
superficial, and soulless as in almost any great center. If I am cruel, O my 
coming poets, I am cruel to be kind. Go forth in the sun, away into the wilds 
or contentedly lay aside your aspirations of song. Now, mark you distinctly, 

I am not writing for poets of the Old World or the Atlantic seaboard. They 
have their work and their ways of work. My notes are for the songless Alaskas, 
Canadas, Califomias, the Aztec lands and the Argentines that patiently await 
their coming prophets. For come they will; but I warn them they will have to 
gird themselves mightily and pass through fire, and perish, many a man; for 
these new worlds will be whistling, out of time, the tunes of the old, and the rich 
and the proud will say in their insolence and ignorance, ‘ Pipe thus, for thus 
piped the famous pipers of old; piping of perished kings, of wars, of castle 
walls, of battling knights, and of maids betrayed. Sing as of old or be silent, for 
we know not, we want not, and we will not, your seas of colors, your forests 
of perfumes, your mountains of melodies.’ ”—M. 

“A Song of the South.’’—Entitled “The Rhyme of the Great River,” this 
was one of the two poems comprised in Songs of the Mexican Seas, 1887. It 
reappeared as the “ Song of the Soundless River” in Songs of the Soul, 1896. 

“Dawn at San Diego”—Entitled “Sunset and Dawn in San Diego,” this 
was the second poem in Songs of the Soul, 1896. 

Songs of the Hebrew Children 

Songs of the Hebrew Children.—The poems in this section are given as in 
the fourth volume of B., except that “The Last Supper” is recovered from a 
miscellaneous section in the first volume, entitled Lines that Papa Liked. 
The entire sequence appeared as Olive Leaves in Songs of the Sun-Lands, 1873, 
except “ La Notte,” “To Russia,” and “To Rachel in Russia,” which seem to 
have appeared first in book form in, In Classic Shades, Chicago, 1890. The 
group is obviously related in theme and spirit to the poems in The Building of 
the City Beautiful; but the Olive Leaves sequence is much more strongly marked 
by the influence of Swinburne and reflects the poet’s first contacts with the 
London poets and with Palestine. In a note in B., IV, 77, Miller speaks of 




J^OtCSJ 


writing and publishing an American edition of “Olive Leaves” in Easton, Pa., 
where he was attending his dying brother in 1871. At this time he had been 
contemplating a poetical life of Christ, but “had begun to see that the measure 
was monotonous.” 


Songs of Italy 

“ Songs of Italy.”—The book with this title was published in Boston, 1878. 
The series is here given as in B. Most of the poems presumably reflect expe¬ 
rience in Italy previous to 1876. An elaborate romantic commentary on this 
period is available in his prose romance, The One Fair Woman, 1876. 

“The Ideal and the Real.”—From Miller's “allegorical” introduction to 
Mae Madden , 1876, a novel of Italy by Mary Murdock Mason; the poem is 
dated, 1875. 

“Vale! America.”—“I do not like this bit of impatience, nor do I expect 
any one else to like it and only preserve it here as a sort of landmark or journal 
in my journey through life. It is only an example of almost an entire book, 
written in Italy. I had, after a long struggle with myself, settled down in 
Italy to remain, as I believed, and as you can see was very miserable, and 
wrote accordingly.”—M. 

The poem “ Poveris! Poveris! ” is omitted from this section as it appears 
with the title “ Feed My Sheep ” in The Building of the City Beautiful. 

From, Shadows of Shasta 

% 

Shadows of Shasta, a prose tale, was published in Chicago, 1881. “Why 
this book? Because last year, in the heart of the Sierras, I saw women and 
children chained together and marched down from their cool, healthy homes 
to degradation and death on the Reservation.”—M. In a characteristic 
chapter, “The Escape,” an Indian girl on the Reservation is rescued by 
“old Forty-Nine” and carried off on horseback in a wild ride into the Sierras. 

Log Cabin Lines 

“ In the early eighties I built a log cabin in the edge of Washington, to be 
more in touch with both sides of the Civil War as well as with the smaller re¬ 
publics. And then many noble people who had been ruined in the South were 
ill content to live in log cabins, as their slaves had lived. I wanted to teach 
that a log cabin can be made very comfortable, with content at hand.”—M. 

Only the first four poems were included by Miller under this title in B. 


J&oteg 


577 


The others here printed were, though scattered through B., marked by external 
or internal evidence as belonging to the same group. All but “Washington 
by the Delaware and The Bravest Battle” appeared in the volume of 1890, 
In Classic Shades. 

The Lost Regiment.”- ■ In a pretty little village of Louisiana destroyed 
by shells toward the end of the war, on a bayou back from the river, a great 
number of very old men had been left by their sons and grandsons, while they 
went to the war. And these old men, many of them veterans of others wars, 
formed themselves into a regiment, made for themselves uniforms, picked up 
old flintlock guns, even mounted a rusty old cannon, and so prepared to go to 
battle if ever the war came within their reach. Toward the close of the war 
some gunboats came down the river shelling the shore. The old men heard the 
firing, and, gathering together, they set out with their old muskets and rusty 
old cannon to try to reach the river over the corduroy road through the cypress 
swamp. They marched out right merrily that hot day, shouting and bantering 
to encourage each other, the dim fires of their old eyes burning with desire of 
battle, although not one of them was young enough to stand erect. And they 
never came back any more. The shells from the gunboats set the dense and 
sultry woods on fire. The old men were shut in by the flames—the gray 
beards and the gray moss and the gray smoke together.”—M. 

“The Poem by the Potomac.”—“The thing, however of the most singular 
interest here [at Mount Vernon] is a key of the Bastile, presented by Thomas 
Paine to Lafayette.”—M. [Lafayette sent the key by Paine to Washington.] 

“The Bravest Battle.”—“A few years ago, when living in my log cabin, 
Washington, some ladies came to inform me that I had been chosen to write a 
poem for the unveiling of an equestrian statue of a hero, the hero of ‘the brav¬ 
est battles that ever were fought.' 

“When they had delivered their message I told them that the beautiful city 
was being disfigured by these pitiful monuments to strife, not one in forty 
being fit works of art, and that I hoped and believed that the last one of these 
would be condemned to the scrap heap within the next century. I reminded 
them that while nearly every city in the Union had more or less of these mon¬ 
strosities I had seen but one little figure in honor of woman; that of a crude bit 
of granite to the memory of a humble baker woman in a back street of New 
Orleans, who gave away bread to the poor. I finally told them, however, that 
if they would come back next morning I would have a few lines about ‘ The 
bravest battles that ever were fought.' 

“ One of them came, got the few lines, but they were not read at the unveil¬ 
ing. However, they were read later in New York, by a New Orleans lady, of 
noble French extraction, the Baroness de Bazus, and they have since been read 
many times, in many lands, and, I am told, in many languages.”—M. 


37 


578 


Mote# 


The Ultimate West 

To this group as arranged by Miller, I have added nothing not contained in 
B, but have included half a dozen pieces from his “miscellaneous" group and 
from his unorganized first volume: “To Juanita," “ California’s Resurrection," 
“Pleasant to the Sight," “The Trees," “A Hard Row for Stumps," “Co¬ 
manche," “The American Ocean," and “California’s Cup of Gold." “Yo- 
semite” and “Dead in the Sierras" are now shifted from this group to their 
original position in Fallen Leaves. In Classic Shades contains a dozen of the 
poems in this section. 

“Old Gib at Castle Rocks."—Reuben P. Gibson, a pioneer judge, led a 
company at the battle of Castle Rocks, in June, 1855, when Miller received an 
arrow wound in the neck. 

“49."—“This poem is taken from ‘49, or the Gold Seekers’ by permission of 
Funk and Wagnalls. . . . The words have been set to music and selected 
as The Song of the Native Sons of California. It was sung in Mining Camps 
long before it was in print."—M 0 

“ San Diego."—The preceding lines from Keats’s “ Ode to a Nightingale " 
were apparently quoted from memory. They should read: 

“ O for a beaker full of the warm South, 

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene." 

“ ‘The Fourth’ in Oregon."—“This poem was read, 1896, near the scene of 
the Whitman massacre at the old Mission." M. In honor of Marcus P. 
Whitman, founder of Whitman College. 

“An Answer.’’—In the American edition of Songs of the Sun-Lands, this 
poem was originally printed as the prelude to “Isles of the Amazons," and 
contained four additional stanzas. 

From, The Building of the City Beautiful 

The Utopian romance from which these poems were taken was published 
in Chicago in 1893. It contains some interesting chapters on the settlement of 
The Hights. Miller reprinted only three of the poems in this section: “In 
the Sweat of Thy Face (At Mary’s Fountain)"; “To Save a Soul”; and “The 
Voice of the Dove.” 

“ In the Sweat of Thy Face."—This poem appears, detached from the 
sequence, in B., with the title “At Mary’s Fountain, Nazaieth." The text 
of B. is followed here, as it contains obvious improvements. 

“The Voice of the Dove."—This poem is here printed from the text of 


Jlotes 


579 

B., where it appears under Lines that Papa Liked. In the book, The Build¬ 
ing of the City Beautiful , only the first two stanzas appear. 

English Themes 

This group I have composed by bringing together related poems, all of 
which appear in B. 

“St. Paul’s” and “Westminster Abbey” were originally parts of “By the 
Sun-Down Seas,” 1873. 

“At Byron’s Tomb.”—This poem alludes to Miller’s first visit to the tomb 
of Byron but was apparently written several years later. 

“Dead in the Long, Strong Grass.”—In memory of Prince Napoleon, a 
friend of the hunting field in England, who died while fighting with the English 
troops in the Zulu war. 

“The Passing of Tennyson.”—Included in Songs of the Soul, 1896. 

“ Mother Egypt.”—Included in Songs of the Soul. Dedicated “ to England 
on her invasion of North Africa,” this w r as one of nine poems in Chants for the 
Boer, a pamphlet of 28 pages published in San Francisco, 1900. Miller took at 
this time a high “moral” tone and attitude towards the question of an Anglo- 
Saxon alliance, maintaining that there could be none, “until this crime against 
the Boer is forgotten, as well as Bunker Hill and the Fourth of July.” 

“ Boston to the Boers.”—From Chants for the Boer. 

More Songs from the Hights 

This group I have made by bringing together short poems of related mood, 
which were scattered through the first, fourth, and fifth volumes of B., mainly 
under “Miscellaneous Lines” and “ Lines that Papa Liked.” 

“Good Buddha Said, Be Clean, Be Clean.”—“What is the matter with 
China, the mightiest and in some ways, such as reverence for parents and re¬ 
spect for old age, the most civilized power that ever had place on the pages of 
history? Why, China never adored beauty. China set up and keeps in her 
temples a monstrous, hideous Joss, and until the day that her hideous Joss is 
thrown down will she, too, be deservedly hideous in the eyes of the world.”—M. 

“Death Is Delightful.”—This is a fragment detached from “Myrrh” and 
included in B. among Miller’s favorite lines. 

Miscellaneous Lines 

“The Missouri.”—“‘The Missouri’ has a right to exist, as it stirred the 
waters from ‘The Shining Mountains’ to the Gulf of Mexico, and taught the 
nation to no longer disdain, ‘The Father of Waters.’ ”—M. 


580 


Jfjtoteg 


“Peter Cooper.”—“The world did not want all I had to say of this gentle 
old man and kept only the three little verses.”—M. 

“ Light of the Southern Cross.”—Title from a manuscript copy supplied 
by Mrs. Miller. In pamphlet form it is entitled: “Panama, Union of the 
Oceans.” 


Semi-Humorous Songs 

“The dower of song is, to my mind, a sacred gift. The prophet and the seer 
should rise above the levities of this life. And so it is that I make humble 
apology for now gathering up from recitation books these next half dozen pieces. 
The only excuse for doing it is their refusal to die; even under the mutilations 
of the compilers of ‘choice selections.’”—M. 

Songs of the American Seas 

“Columbus.”—This poem is printed in B. under the caption “Later Lines 
Preferred by London.” It was included in Songs of the Soul , 1896. ‘ The Lon¬ 
don Atheneum (sic), years after the royal reception given my first books, pro¬ 
nounced this the best American poem. Let me say to my following it is far 
from that; even I have done better; too much like a chorus. ‘The Passing of 
Tennyson’ is better. ‘The Missouri’ better still.”—M. 

“A Song of Creation.”—The greater part of this poem appeared ina 99-page 
pamphlet called As it Was in the Beginning , published in San Francisco in 
1903. It was revised and published as Light in Boston, in 1907, with illustrative 
scenes from California, Alaska, Japan, and Hawaii as headings for the four 
books. 

“With Love to You and Yours.”—A revision of “Sappho and Phaon,” the 
first poem in Songs of the Soul , 1896. 


INDEX OF FIRST LINES 


A beautiful stream is the River of Rest, 427 
A blazing home, a blood-soaked hearth, 377 
A fig for her story of shame and of piide! 435 
Against our golden orient dawns, 383 
Ah me! I mind me long agone, 428 
A land that man has newly trod, 349 
“All honor to him who shall win the prize,” 
426 

Aloha! Wahwah! Quelle raison? 468 
Alone and sad I sat me down, 455 
Alone on this desolate border, 49 
A morn in Oregon! The kindled camp, 173 
And full these truths eternal, 313 
And here, sweet friend, I go my way, 564 
And oh, the voices I have heard! 4x9 
And they came to Him, mothers of Judah, 
304 

And this then is all of the sweet life she 
promised! 50 

And what for the man who went forth for 
the right, 404 

And where lies Usland, Land of Us? 466 
And who the bravest of the brave, 405 
And yet again through the watery miles, 
343 

And you, too, banged at the Chilkoot, 447 
As a tale that is told, as a vision, 308 
A sinking sun, a sky of red, 157 
A storm burst forth! From out the storm, 
445 

A tale half told and hardly understood, 166 
A wild, wide land of mysteries, 216 
Aye, the world is a better old world today! 

419 

Because the skies were blue, because, 61 
“Be clean, be clean!" Gautama cried, 421 
Behind him lay the gray Azores, 475 
Behold how glorious! Behold, 421 
Behold the silvered mists that rise, 403 
Behold the tree, the lordly tree, 366 
Be thou not angered. Go thy way, 397 

City at sea, thou art surely an ark, 341 
Come, lean an ear, an earnest ear, 397 
Come, let us ponder; it is fit, 393 
Come, listen O Love to the voice of the 
dove, 405 

Comes a cry from Cuban water, 444 
Come to my sunland! Come with me, 104 

Dark-browed, she broods with weary lids, 
413 

Dead! stark dead in the long, strong grass! 
412 

Dear Bethlehem, the proud repose, 393 

58 


Death is delightful. Death is dawn, 427 
Dove-borne symbol, olive bough, 356 

Eld Druid oaks of Ayr, 146 
Emerald, emerald, emerald Land, 381 
Espousal of the vast, void seas, 448 

For glory? For good? For fortune, or for 
fame? 422 

“For the Right! as God has given,” 350 
From out the golden doors of dawn, 400 
From out the vast, wide bosomed West, 441 
From Shasta town to Redding town, 368 
Frosts of an hour! Fruits of a season! 160 

Glintings of day in the darkness, 120 

Hail, fat king Ned! 441 
Hail, Independence of old ways! 387 
Hear ye this parable. A man, 393 
He died at dawn in the land of snows, 413 
Her hands were clasped downward and 
doubled, 306 

He walked the world with bended head, 104 
His broad-brimm’d hat push’d back with 
careless air, 172 

His eyes are dim, he gropes his way, 375 
His footprints have failed us, 156 
Honor and glory forever more, 440 
How sad that all great things are sad, 422 
“How shall man surely save his soul?” 399 
How swift this sand, gold-laden, runs! 379 
Huge silver snow-peaks, white as wool, 462 

“I am an Ussian true,” he said, 466 
I am as one unlearned, uncouth, 50 
Ice built, ice bound and ice bounded, 382 
I do recall some sad days spent, 339 
I dream’d, O Queen, of you, last night, 437 
If earth is an oyster, love is the pearl, 157 
I have a world, a world which is all my own, 
52 

I heard a tale long, long ago, 373 

In a land so far that you wonder whether, 

245 

In men whom men condemn as ill, 147 
In the days when my mother, the Earth, 
was young, 425 

In the place where the grizzly reposes, 158 
I see above a crowded world a cross, 409 
I see her now—the fairest thing, 434 
Is it night? And sits night at your pillow? 
3°3 

Is it worth while that we jostle a brother, 47 
I stand upon the green Sierra’s wall, 168 
It seems to me a grandest thing, 420 




Srtbex of Jfirst Hints 


582 


I think the bees, the blessed bees, 403 
I think the birds in that far dawn, 394 

King of Tigre, comrade true, 155 

Let me rise and go forth. A far, dim spark, 
333 

Life knows no dead so beautiful, 143 
Like fragments of an uncompleted world, 
i6 5 

Lo! here sit we by the sun-down seas, 213 
Lo! here sit we mid the sun-down seas, 158 
Look back, beyond the Syrian sand, 398 
Lo! on the plains of Bethel lay, 398 
Lorn land of silence, land of awe! 396 

Man’s books are but man’s alphabet, 403 

Montara, Naples of my West! 378 

My brave world-builders of the West! 165 

My city sits amid her palms, 287 

My kingly kinsmen, kings of thought, 412 

My Mountains still are free! 363 

My own and my only Love some night, 359 

Night seems troubled and scarce asleep, 332 
No! It is not well, Zanara, 48 
‘‘No, not so lonely now—I love,” 374 
No, sir; no turkey for me, sir, 464 

Oaks of the voiceless ages! 54 
O boy at peace upon the Delaware! 301 
O, heavens, the eloquent song of the silence! 
428 

Oh, for England’s old sea thunder! 410 
Oh, give me good mothers! Yea, great, 
glad mothers, 423 
Oh, it were better dying there, 386 
Oh, lion of the ample earth, 435 
Oh! she is very old. I lay, 414 
O Jebus! thou mother of prophets, 304 
O land of temples, land of tombs! 395 
O Master, here I bow before a shrine, 4x0 
Once, morn by morn, when snowy moun¬ 
tains flamed, 172 

One night we touched the lily shore, 440 
Only a basket for fruits or bread, 345 
O perfect heroes of the earth, 386 
O star-built bridge, broad milky way! 394 
O terrible lion of tame Saint Mark! 323 
O, the mockery of pity ! 350 
O thou Tomorrow! Mystery! 428 
O thou, whose patient, peaceful blood, 309 
O tranquil moon! O pitying moon! 350 

Paine! The Prison of France! Lafayette! 
360 

Primeval forests! virgin sod! 179 

Rhyme on, rhyme on, in reedy flow, 263 
Rise up! How brief this little day? 540 
Room! room to turn round in, to breathe 
and be free, 149 

Sad song of the wind in the mountains, 126 
Sail, sail yon skies of cobalt blue, 447 
Santa Ana came storming, as a storm might 
come, 439 


Says Plato, ‘‘Once in Greece the gods, 

467 

See once these stately scenes, then roam no 
more, 170 

Shadows that shroud the tomorrow, 88 

Sierras, and eternal tents, 137 

Sing banners and cannon and roll of drum! 

423 

Some fragrant trees, 438 
Some fugitive lines that allure us no more, 
153 

Some leveled hills, a wall, a dome, 339 
Sound!sound!sound! 155 
Sowing the waves with a fiery rain, 433 
Such musky smell of maiden night! 360 
Sword in hand he was slain, 439 


‘‘Ten thousand miles of mobile sea,” 382 
Thatch of palm and a patch of clover, 155 
That man who lives for self alone, 61 
The Abbey broods beside the turbid 
Thames, 410 

The bravest battle that ever was fought, 361 
The bravest, manliest man is he, 476 
The brave young city by the Balboa seas, 
383 

The broad magnolia’s blooms are white, 384 
The Day sat by with banner furled, 401 
The dying land cried; they heard her death- 
call, 357 

The golden fleece is at our feet, 384 
The golden poppy is God’s gold, 383 
The gold that with the sunlight lies, 440 
The hail like cannon-shot struck the sea, 
342 . 

The hills were brown, the heavens were 
blue, 113 

The huge sea monster, the “ Merrimac,” 359 
The king of rivers has a dolorous shore, 434 
The lakes lay bright as bits of broken moon, 
330 

The monument, tipped wdth electric fire, 353 
The mountains from that fearful first, 349 
The old stage-drivers of the brave old days! 
460 

The rain! The rain! The generous rain! 
366 

There were whimsical turns of the waters, 

305 

These famous waters smell like—well, 463 
‘‘The silver cord loosed,” 54 
The snow was red with patriot blood, 360 
The stars are large as lilies! Morn, 384 
The sun lay molten in the sea, 401 
The Sword of Gideon, Sword of God, 416 
The tented field wore a wrinkled frown, 356 
The trees they lean’d in their love unto 
trees, 367 

The world it is wide; men go their ways, 209 
The world lay as a dream of love, 469 
They called him Bill, the hired man, 458 
They tell me, ere the maple leaves grow 
brown once more, 55 
This tall, strong City stands today, 442 
Those brave old bricks of forty-nine! 385 
Those shining leaves that lisped and shook, 
400 



Snfcex of Jfirsst Hinefi 


583 


Thou, mother of brave men, of nations! 
Thou, 409 

To lord all Godland! lift the brow, 349 
To those who have known my mad life’s 
troubles, 55 

’Twas night in Venice. Then down to the 
tide, 344 

Two gray hawks ride the rising blast, 370 
Two noble brothers loved a fair, 456 


Unwalled it lies, and open as the sun, 442 


We dwelt in the woods of the Tippecanoe, 
43 

We have worked our claims, 380 
Well! who shall lay hand on my harp but 
me, 389 

We must trust the Conductor, most surely, 
426 

We part as ships on a pathless main, 159 
What if we all lay dead below, 404 
What shall be said of the sun-born Pueblo? 
380 

What shall be said of this soldier now dead? 
42s 

What song is well sung not of sorrow? 305 


What song sang the twelve with the Saviour, 

307 

What sound was that? A pheasant’s whir? 
395 

What wonder that I swore a prophet’s 
oath,175 

Where now the brownie fisher-lad? 446 
Where ranged thy black-maned woolly 
bulls, 433 

Where San Diego seas are warm, 378 
Where the cocoa and cactus are neighbors, 
156 

With high face held to her ultimate star, 

424 

With incense and myrrh and sweet spices, 

303 

With the buckler and sword into battle, 160 
Who tamed your lawless Tartar blood? 309 
Why, know you not soul speaks to soul? 

405 

Yea, Santa Barbara is fair, 159 
Yes, I am dreamer. Yet while you dream, 
4*9 

You ask for manliest, martial deeds? 367 
You sail and you seek for the Fortunate 
Isles, 420 

You will come, my bird, Bonita, 365 










%- 




l 







INDEX OF TITLES 


Adios, 564 
Africa, 414 
After the Battle, 423 
Alaska, 382 

American Ocean, The, 382 

And Oh, the Voices I Have Heard, 419 

Answer, An, 389 

Arbor Day, 383 

Arizonian, The, 104 

At Bethlehem, 303 

At Lord Byron’s Tomb, 410 

At Sea, 159 

Attila’s Throne, Torcello, 339 
Awaiting the Resurrection at Karnak, 396 

Battle Flag at Shenandoah, The, 356 
Beyond Jordan, 304 
Bits from Ina, a Drama, 126 
Blessed Bees, The, 403 
Boston to the Boers, 415 
Bravest Battle, The, 361 
Building of the City Beautiful, The, 
1893, 39 i 
Burns, 146 
Byron, 147 

By the Balboa Seas, 384 

By the Lower Mississippi, 434 

By the Sun-Down Seas, 1873, 163 


California’s Christmas, 384 

California’s Cup of Gold, 383 

California’s Resurrection, 366 

Capucin of Rome, The, 345 

Charity, 306 

Chilkoot Pass, 447 

Christ in Egypt, The, 395 

Christmas by the Great River, 435 

Columbus, 475 

Comanche, 377 

Coming of Spring, The, 359 

Como, 330 

Cuba Libre, 444 

Custer, 386 


Dawn at San Diego, 287 

Day Sat by with Banner Furled, The, 401 

Dead Carpenter, A, 425 

Dead Czar, The, 445 

Dead in the Long, Strong Grass, 412 

Dead in the Sierras, 156 

Dead Millionaire, The, 440 

Death Is Delightful, 427 

Defense of the Alamo, The, 439 

Dirge, 54 

Don’t Stop at the Station Despair, 426 


Dove of St. Mark, A, 323 
Down the Mississippi at Night, 433 

England, 409 
English Themes, 407 
Even So, 137 
Exodus for Oregon, 166 

Faith, 305 

Fallen Leaves, 1873, 153 
Feed My Sheep, 393 
Finale, 428 

First Law of God, The, 398 
For the Right, 350 
For Those Who Fail, 426 
Fortunate Isles, The, 420 
“49,” 380 

Foundation Stones, The, 397 

From Out the Golden Doors of Dawn, 400 

From Sea to Sea, 213 

Garfield, 441 

Gold That Grew by Shasta Town, The, 368 
Good Buddha Said “Be Clean, Be Clean,” 
421 

Great Emerald Land, The, 173 
Growing of a Soul, The, 393 

Hailstorm in Venice, A, 342 
Hard Row for Stumps, A, 367 
He Loves and Rides Away, 435 
Heroes of America, The, 386 
Heroes of Oregon, The, 168 
Her Picture, 434 

He Walked the World with Bended Head, 
401 

Hope, 30s 

Horace Greeley’s Drive, 460 

How Beautiful Are the Feet, 394 

How Shall Man Surely Save His Soul? 399 

Ideal and the Real, The, 313 
In a Gondola, 344 
In Classic Shades, 455 
Indian Summer, An, 209 
In Exile, 49 
In Palestine, 304 
In San Francisco, 158 
In Southern California, 156 
In the Sweat of Thy Face, 395 
Is It Worth While? 47 
Isles of the Amazons, 179 

Joaquin Et Al, 1869, 45 
Joaquin Murietta, 120 

Kit Carson’s Ride, 149 


585 




536 


Sttiiex of Cities 


Land That Man Has Newly Trod, A, 349 

“La Notte,” 303 

Larger College, The, 378 

Last Supper, The, 307 

Last Taschastas, The, 113 

Light of Christ’s Face, The, 421 

Light of the Southern Cross, 448 

Lincoln Park, 442 

Little Brown Man, The, 446 

Log Cabin Lines, 351 

Lo! On the Plains of Bethel, 398 

Lost Regiment, The, 357 

Love in the Sierras, 374 

Love Song, A, 157 

Magnolia Blossoms, 384 

Man’s Books, 403 

Memory of Santa Barbara, A, 159 

Men of Forty-Nine, The, 385 

Merinda, 50 

Miscellaneous Lines, 431 
Missouri, The, 433 
Montara, 378 

Montgomery at Quebec, 439 

More Songs From the Hights, 417 

Mother Egypt, 413 

Mothers of Men, 423 

Mountains, The, 349 

Mount Shasta, 349 

Myrrh, 143 

Nepenthe, 32 

Newport News, 359 

Nubian Face on the Nile, A, 440 

O Boy at Peace, 301 

Oh, for England’s Old Time Thunder! 410 
Old Gib at Castle Rocks, 375 
Olive, 336 

On the Firing Line, 422 
O, the Mockery of Pity, 350 
O Tranquil Moon, 350 
Our Heroes of Today, 424 
Oye-Agua: Oregon, 165 

Palm Leaves, 155 

Passing of Tennyson, The, 412 

Peter Cooper, 440 

Picture of a Bull, 172 

Pioneers to the Great Emerald Land, 381 

Pleasant to the Sight, 366 

Poem by the Potomac, The, 360 

Poet, The, 419 

Put Up Thy Sword, 405 

Queen of My Dreams, The, 437 
Question? 425 

Resurgo San Francisco, 442 
Riel, the Rebel, 413 
River of Rest, The, 427 
Rome, 339 

St. Paul’s, 409 

San Diego, 380 

Santa Maria: Torcello, 343 


Saratoga and the Psalmist, 463 
Says Plato, 467 
Sea of Fire, The, 24s 
Semi-Humorous Songs, 453 
Sermon on the Mount, The, 394 
Shadows of Shasta, 158 
Shadows of Shasta, 1881, 347 
Shasta Tale of Love, A, 373 
Ship in the Desert, The, 216 
Sierra Grande del Norte, 165 
Sierras Adios, 160 
Sioux Chief’s Daughter, The, 370 
Soldiers’ Home, Washington. The, 353 
Song for Peace, A, 308 
Song of Creation, A, 476 
Song of the Silence, The, 428 
Song of the South, A, 263 
Songs of Italy, 31i 
Songs of the American Seas, 473 
Songs of the Hebrew Children (Olive 
Leaves), 299 

Songs of the Sierras, 1871, 59 
Songs of the Sunlands, 177 
Summer Frosts, 160 
Summer Moons at Mount Vernon, 360 
Sun Lay Molten in the Sea, The, 401 
Sunrise in Venice, 332 

Tale of the Tall Alcalde, The, 88 

That Faithful Wife of Idaho, 462 

That Gentle Man from Boston, 456 

That Ussian of Usland, 466 

The Fourth in Hawaiian Waters, 447 

“ The Fourth ’’ in Oregon, 387 

Thomas of Tigre, 155 

Those Perilous Spanish Eyes, 438 

To Andrew Carnegie, 441 

Toil of God, The, 403 

To Juanita, 365 

To Maud, 61 

Tomorrow, 428 

To Rachel in Russia, 309 

To Rest at Last, 17s 

To Russia, 309 

To Save a Soul, 420 

To the Bards of S. F. Bay, 50 

To the Pioneers, 379 

Trees, The, 367 

True Greatness, 422 

Truly Brave, The, 404 

Turkey Hunt in Texas, A, 464 

Twilight at the Hights, 383 

Two Wise Old Men of Omar’s Land, 469 

Ultimate West, The, 363 
Ultime, 55 
Under the Oaks, 54 
Under the Olive Trees, 400 
Under the Syrian Stars, 393 
Usland, 466 

Vale, 55 

Vale! America, 333 
Vaquero, 172 
Venice, 341 

Voice of the Dove, The, 405 
Voice of Toil, The, 397 




3n&EX of titles 


587 


Walker in Nicaragua, 61 
Washington by the Delaware, 360 
Welcome to the Great American Ocean, 
468 

Westminster Abbey, 410 
What If We All Lay Dead Below, 404 
When Little Sister Came, 43 
Where Rolls the Oregon, 170 
Who Shall Say? 157 


Why, Know You Not Soul Speaks to Soul, 
405 

William Brown of Oregon, 458 
With Love to You and Yours, 540 
World Is a Better World, The, 419 

Yosemite, 155 

Zanara, 48 










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